The  Medical  Arm 


of  tbc 


iSSioiiarv  Service 


Testimonies  Irom  tlie  Field 


^  PRINCETON,    N.  J.  ' 


Purchased  by  the  Hammill   Missionary  Fund. 


Division 


Section 


Ninnber . 


The   Medical   Arm 


OF  THE 


Missionary  Service, 


TESTIMONIES   FROM   THE   FIELD. 


Edr, 


^tmerfcan  Boarli  of  C[r0mmfss{0ner3  for  JForefgn  fHtssfons, 

I  SOMERSET  STREET,  BOSTON. 
1894. 


V 


T^HE  following  collection  of  testimonies  in  reference  to  the  aims 
*  and  methods  of  Medical  Missions  has  been  kindly  prepared  by 
tlie  Rev.  Edmund  K.  Alden,  d.d.,  who,  while  Corresponding  Secretary, 
secured  these  communications  from  able  and  devoted  missionary 
physicians  in  various  parts  of  the  world. 

E.  E.  S., 

Editorial  Secretary. 
Rooms  of  the  American  Board, 
Boston,  June,  1894. 


PRESS  OF  SAMUEL  USHER,  BOSTON,  MASS. 


THE    MEDICAL   ARM   OF   THE 
MISSIONARY   SERVICE. 


TESTIMONIES    FROM    THE    FIELD. 


"  What  is  the  place  appropriately  occupied  by  the  medical  work 
as  a  missionary  agency  ?  Has  it  any  perils  on  the  spiritual  side, 
as  related  to  the  secularizing  of  the  missionary  work?"  These 
inquiries,  or  inquiries  of  a  similar  import,  were  sent  out  a  few 
months  ago  to  several  of  the  medical  missionaries  of  the  Ameri- 
can Board,  most  of  them  having  had  a  prolonged  experience  in 
the  service.  The  following  replies  which  have  been  received  are 
herewith  presented  as  worthy  of  careful  perusal,  being  exceedingly 
instructive  and  suggestive. 

They  all  unite  in  urging  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of  this 
department  of  missions,  calling  for  additional  pecuniary  support 
and  for  an  increase  in  the  number  of  thoroughly  educated  and 
thoroughly  consecrated  missionary  physicians,  both  men  and 
women.  A  few  thousand  dollars  each  year,  specially  designated 
by  donors  for  the  medical  department,  would  be  exceedingly  help- 
ful to  the  entire  work. 

Possibly  some  of  the  noble  Christian  physicians  in  our  churches 
and  congregations  at  home,  appreciating,  as  they  may  be  expected 
to  do  more  than  others,  the  value  of  this  beneficence,  may  feel 
impelled  themselves  to  bestow,  and  to  encourage  others  to  bestow, 
generous  gifts  for  this  important  work.     So  may  it  be,  if  God  will  ! 

We  present  fourteen  testimonies,  one  from  Africa,  two  from 
India,  two  from  Japan,  four  from  Turkey,  and  five  from  China. 

FROM    AFRICA. 
I. 

The  first  testimony  we  present  is  from  Dr.  W.  L.  Thompson,  of 
East  Central  Africa  :  — 

"  My  experience  in  medical  missionary  work  has  been  limited, 
as  it  is  little  over  eighteen  months  since  I   reached  Africa  and 


during  much  of  this  time  I  have  been  travehng  about,  rendering 
it  impossible  to  follow  the  results  of  the  little  work  that  I 
could  do  in  this  line  ;  so  that  this  statement  must  be  much  more 
the  result  of  thought  than  of  experience.  Still  I  have  seen  enough 
of  the  ignorance  and  superstition  and  the  resulting  useless  and 
cruel  practices  of  the  heathen  of  this  land  to  convince  any  one, 
it  would  seem,  that  the  Golden  Rule  requires  us,  and  that  the  spirit 
of  the  Good  Samaritan  must  impel  us,  to  seek  to  enlighten  and 
help  them  in  this  as  in  their  other  needs. 

"  I  fully  recognize  that  their  great  need  is  of  a  change  of  heart, 
and  that  this  must  come  through  a  view  of  the  Lamb  of  God  and 
a  knowledge  of  his  dying  love.  But  how  is  this  to  be  brought  to 
them  ?  It  is  not  enough  that  we  tell  them  of  Christ's  love.  The 
story  will  seem  but  an  '  idle  tale  '  to  them  unless  they  see  that 
love  exhibited  in  living  form  before  their  eyes.  In  what  other 
way  can  we  so  readily  do  this  as  in  relieving  their  physical  suffer- 
ings? As  we  look  at  them,  living  in  their  wretched  huts  with 
scarcely  any  clothing,  they  seem  to  us  to  be  destitute  of  all  things, 
but  this  is  not  their  view  of  their  condition.  In  regard  to  these 
things  they  are  well  satisfied.  Should  we  give  them  clothes  they 
would  not  look  upon  it  as  an  act  of  charity,  for  they  feel  no  need 
in  this  line.  They  would  not  feel  that  we  were  sacrificing  any- 
thing for  their  good,  for  they  look  upon  us  as  possessing  inexhaust- 
ible wealth.  They  would  simply  consider  that  we  wished  to  win 
their  favor,  probably  for  some  selfish  end.  But  in  regard  to  their 
physical  sufferings  they  feel  a  need  ;  they  often  suffer  hopeless  of 
relief,  and  if  relief  can  be  given,  they  feel  that  that  is  something  to 
be  thankful  for,  that  they  have  been  befriended.  They  become 
more  ready  to  listen  when  spoken  to  of  their  greater  needs  and 
the  provision  which  has  been  made  for  them. 

"  Then  many  of  the  most  debasing  and  ensnaring  superstitions 
are  connected  with  their  theories  and  treatment  of  disease,  and 
to  meet  these  superstitions  it  is  desirable  that  one  should  clearly 
understand  the  subject  with  which  they  are  connected.  So  firmly 
is  the  belief  in  some  of  these  superstitions  fixed  in  their  minds 
that  it  often  occurs  that  one  who  has  professed  Christianity  for 
years,  and  has  appeared  to  '  run  well,'  feels  impelled,  when  some 
sickness  or  calamity  comes  upon  him,  to  seek  help  from  some 
of  these  superstitious  rites.  Nor  is  this  so  strange  when  we  think 
how  much  superstition  still  finds  place  in  Christian  lands  and  even 
among  Christian  people  of  those  lands ;  but  there  it  is  limited  by 


public  sentiment  to  less  obnoxious  forms,  while  here  it  rules  as 
a  cruel  tyrant.  The  belief  in  witchcraft  is  very  firmly  established. 
When  one  becomes  sick,  some  one  must  be  to  blame.  The 
offender  must  be  '  smelt  out '  and  when  discovered  is  most  cruelly 
treated.  How  can  such  a  superstition  be  better  met  than  by 
showing  them  —  placing  before  their  eyes  —  the  agent  of  disease, 
showing  how  it  may  be  introduced  into  animals  with  the  same 
deleterious  effects  that  it  produces  in  human  beings ;  that  its 
growth  and  development  is  as  definite  and  regular  as  is  that  of  the 
corn  in  their  fields,  the  ticks  on  their  cattle,  or  the  intestinal 
worms  with  which  they  are  all  familiar? 

"Closely  related  to  overcoming  faith  in  superstitions  is  the  gain- 
ing of  confidence  in  the  missionary  and  his  message,  and  here 
the  influence  of  skilful  treatment  of  their  sick  is  of  great  impor- 
tance. Not  only  does  a  right  use  of  medical  skill  convince  them 
of  our  kindly  regard,  but  the  triumphs  of  modern  medical  science 
often  have  the  impression  of  miracles  to  them.  And  why  may 
thev  not  legitimately  serve  a  similar  purpose  to  these  poor 
heathen  that  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  his  apostles  did  to  those 
whom  they  taught  and  do  to  us  ?  Christ  doubtless  delighted  in  the 
relief  of  physical  suffering  when  consistent  with  spiritual  good ; 
but  it  seems  equally  certain  that  he  had  a  much  higher  object  in 
view  in  the  performance  of  miracles  —  to  draw  the  attention  of 
men  to  the  great  truth  he  had  to  offer  them  and  to  convince  them 
that  he  spoke  with  authority  :  '  If  ye  believe  not  me,  believe  the 
works.'  Aside  from  this  object  it.  seems  doubtful  whether  mira- 
cles would  ever  have  been  wrought  merely  for  the  relief  of  phys- 
ical suffering.  Why  should  not  the  miracles  of  modern  medical 
science  help  to  accomplish  these  same  great  ends  for  the  heathen 
world  ? 

"  The  relevancy  of  the  above  considerations  should,  it  seems, 
be  established  by  the  fact  that  in  the  absence  of  the  medical  mis- 
sionary all  missionaries  in  this  land  feel  compelled  to  treat  dis- 
ease. If  they  have  never  given  any  attention  to  the  subject  of 
medicine,  they  are  led  to  do  so  at  once  upon  entering  upon  mis- 
sion work.  All  such  work,  if  skilfully  performed,  is  found  useful, 
and  of  course  the  greater  the  skill  employed  (other  things  being 
equal)  the  more  good  may  be  looked  for ;  while  in  like  manner, 
the    results  of  unskilful  efforts  may  be  prejudicial  to  the  cause. 

"  It  is  suggested  that  medical  mission  work  '  may  have  its  perils 
on  the  secular  side.'     It  would  seem  to  me  that  if  there  is  danger 


here,  it  must  be  in  the  fact  that  men  who  are  not  really  conse- 
crated to  securing  the  highest  good  of  those  for  whom  they  labor 
may  be  more  liable  to  be  attracted  to  this  than  to  other  depart- 
ments of  missionary  work,  though  it  is  certain  that  this  danger  is 
not  confined  to  this  department  of  work." 

FROM    INDIA. 

II. 

Dr.  Edward  Chester,  of  the  Madura  Mission,  thus  writes  :  — 

"  I  imagine  that  I  can  work  in  the  medical  line  better  than  I 
can  talk  about  it.  The  men  ito  speak  a  good  word  for  the  mission 
medical  work  are  intelligent  friends  of  foreign  missions,  who  come 
and  see  our  work  with  their  own  eyes  and  can  appreciate  its  value. 

"  I  have  had  now  thirty-four  years'  experience  of  this  mission 
medical  work  in  India.  I  have  looked  at  it  on  every  side  and 
have  had  excellent  opportunities  of  seeing  just  what  it  is  really 
worth,  as  a  part  of  the  carrying  out  of  our  dear  Lord's  parting 
command.  And  I  feel  that  too  much  cannot  be  said  in  its  favor, 
and  that  it  would  be  ditificult  to  exaggerate  its  benefits  and  advan- 
tages to  our  entire  mission  work. 

"  I  have  never  felt  disposed  to  exalt  any  special  mission  work 
over  any  or  all  forms  of  such  work.  Each  has  its  place  and  is  a 
necessity  in  helping  on  the  coming  of  Christ's  kingdom.  In 
carrying  on  my  own  mission  work  in  the  Dindigul  station  of  the 
Madura  Mission  I  give  the  same  care  and  labor  and  time  to 
the  evangelistic  and  educational  and  church  work  that  I  do  to  the 
medical.  I  try  to  keep  them  all  up  to  the  mark,  and  have  them 
all  move  on  harmoniously. 

"  The  mission  medical  work  is  a  great  object  lesson  to  the  world, 
which  is  specially  telling  and  instructive  to  the  non-Christian 
people  who  surround  a  mission  district  in  countries  of  idolaters. 
The  pictures  having  been  shown,  the  lesson  taught  is  love,  the 
love  which  Jesus  the  Christ  showed  in  his  life  and  taught  in  his 
words  when  here  on  earth.  As  Christ  Jesus  was  the  great,  the 
model  missionary,  so  was  he  the  wonderful,  the  pattern  medical 
missionary.  Just  what  his  miracles  of  healing  did  for  the  world 
eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-three  years  ago,  to  excite  gratitude, 
to  allay  race  hatred,  to  lessen  the  bitterness  of  opposite  religions, 
to  overcome  evil  by  good,  so  now,  though  in  a  modified  quality 
and  a  minimized  degree,  does  the  mission  medical  work  reach  the 
hearts  of  men  and  lead  them  to  think  better  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 


"  Forms  of  mission  medical  work  may  differ ;  it  may  be  among 
men,  women,  and  children,  or  exclusively  among  women  and 
children  ;  or  it  may  add  to  medical  and  surgical  work  in  the  hos- 
pital and  dispensary  the  excellent  and  important  work  of  training 
up  young  men  and  women  in  non-Christian  countries  to  be  physi- 
cians or  nurses  ;  still  the  benefit  and  the  influence  and  the  blessing 
are  one  and  the  same.  My  own  firm  conviction,  after  these  thirty- 
four  years  of  active  medical  work  in  India,  is  that  no  mission  is 
complete  or  doing  all  that  it  might  and  ought  to  do  to  hasten  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  that  has  not  side  by  side  with 
its  church  and  evangelistic  and  educational  and  literary,  or  trans- 
lating and  publishing  work,  a  mission  medical  work,  conducted  in 
the  most  eiificient  manner  possible,  with  an  eye  constantly  not 
alone  to  the  greatest  professional  success,  but  to  the  widest  and 
most  extensive  spiritual  good." 

m. 

Dr.  W.  O.  Ballantine,  of  Western  India,  bears  his  witness  as 
follows  :  — 

"  In  brief  I  may  say  that  the  reasons  why  medical  missions  are 
necessary  may  be  grouped  under  the  following  heads  :  — 

"  First,  Christ  our  Lord  commands  them. 

"  Second,  Philanthropy  requires  them. 

"Third,  There  is  wisdom  in  establishing  them. 

"  Fourth,  Experience  proves  their  value. 

"  I  would  remark  in  general,  in  connection  with  this  grouping  of 
the  subject,  that  medical  missions  have  been  of  great  value  in  the 
way  of  self-preservation,  of  self-support,  and  of  opening  out  new 
fields  of  missionary  labor.  Prejudice  would  have  made  it  well- 
nigh  impossible  for  regularly  ordained  missionaries  to  have  gained 
a  foothold  in  many  of  these  places.  The  medical  missionary  has 
entered  such  places,  often  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  and  has  through 
the  medical  knowledge  that  God  has  given  him  gained  the  love 
and  respect  of  the  people,  so  that  permission  has  at  length  been 
granted  him  to  stay  on  and  open  up  work  there  which  had  been 
at  first  peremptorily  refused  him. 

"  Medical  missions  are  a  great  means  of  enlightening  and  civiliz- 
ing degraded  and  ignorant  communities.  Large  numbers  of  per- 
sons, especially  children,  among  such  communities  die  annually, 
solely  through  barbarous  and  inhuman  ways  of  treating  their  sick. 
Enlightened  medical  practitioners  have  stepped  in  and  saved  the 


8 

lives  of  many  such,  and  secured  the  undying  gratitude  of  multi- 
tudes of  their  friends  and  relatives.  Caste  prejudice  in  India 
exists,  as  you  know,  in  an  aggravated  way.  This  has  often  been 
removed,  and  a  kindly  feeling  established  in  many  neighborhoods 
toward  missionaries  and  also  toward  the  religion  they  profess 
and  seek  to  extend. 

"  Instances,  drawn  from  my  own  personal  experience,  might  be- 
mentioned  to  illustrate  many  of  these  points ;  but  I  must  content 
myself  with  only  one  for  want  of  time.  When  I  first  went  to 
Rahuri,  seventeen  years  ago,  it  needed  the  greatest  amount  of 
coaxing  to  get  the  villagers  rand  townspeople  of  that  region  to 
take  medicine  from  a  white  man.  After  a  few  months  they  would 
take  medicine  put  up  in  powders  or  made  up  into  pills.  It 
required  the  greatest  amount  of  ingenuity  to  give  medicine 
always  in  this  shape.  Now  all  classes  come  freely  to  my  dispen- 
sary, and  take  medicine  in  liquid  form,  put  up  in  bottles,  as 
freely  as  in  the  forms  above  referred  to.  The  reason  for  this 
was  that  their  priests  had  strictly  interdicted  all  liquid  medicines, 
as  being  especially  prejudicial  to  their  caste  standing.  Latterly, 
however,  they  got  around  this  interdiction  by  stating  that  any 
water  put  up  in  bottles,  especially  when  diluted  with  any  kind  of 
medicine,  was  perfectly  pure  for  any  one  to  drink,  even  though 
it  had  been  previously  touched  by  an  outcaste  missionary  or 
his  defiled  converts.  This  is  only  one  instance,  but  it  will  serve 
to  illustrate  the  intenseness  of  caste  prejudice  in  India  and  also 
shows  what  patient  labor  and  forbearance  on  the  part  of  the 
missionary,  coupled  with  kindness  towards  all,  whether  friends  or 
foes,  will  accomplish." 

FROM   JAPAN. 
IV. 

Dr.  J.  C.  Berry,  of  Japan,  thus  writes  :  — 

"  The  medical  missionary  should  be  first  and  always  a  man  con- 
secrated to  Christ's  service,  and  with  such  a  deep  undercurrent  of 
Christian  character  and  determination  as  will  enable  him  to  resist 
the  subtle  temptations  to  use  his  unique  position  only  for  scien- 
tific and  humanitarian  work.  The  difference  between  an  ordinary 
hospital  and  a  missionary  hospital  should  be  only  this  —  the  serv- 
ice of  the  latter  consecrated  to  Christ.  It  should  not  be  one 
whit  behind  the  general  hospital  in  outfit  and  completeness  of 
organization,  but  in  it  there  should  be  regular  preaching  of  the 


gospel  and  personal  work  for  Christ  linked  with  scientific  and 
systematic  work  in  the  art  of  healing.  Every  assistant  and 
employee  must  therefore  be  a  Christian,  and  the  medical  mission- 
ary must  unify  the  aim  of  all  by  weekly  prayer-meetings  with  his 
staff  and  by  setting  a  practical  example  of  Christian  work  and 
living  to  all.  Thus  conducted,  the  mission  hospital  remains  a 
great  power  in  every  land  for  good.  I  would  further  add,  He 
must  regard  himself  as  a  co-worker  with  his  brethren  —  the  serv- 
ice of  both  having  but  one  ultimate  object  —  the  bringing  of  men 
to  Christ.     I  believe  in  a  Service  of  Healing. 

"  It  has  been  said  that  one  of  the  marked  differences  in  the 
experience  of  a  medical  and  a  clerical  missionary  is  that  with  the 
former  the  people  come  to  him,  while  with  the  latter  he  goes  to 
them.  This  difference,  with  the  growing  interest  in  Christian 
truth  in  Japan,  is  not  as  marked  as  in  most  mission  fields ;  but 
it  is  still  a  truth  of  course  here.  Last  year  patients  sought  reUef 
at  the  hospital  from  147  cities  and  villages  outside  of  Kyoto, 
some  of  them  from  remote  parts  of  the  country.  To  such  I  need 
scarcely  say  the  missionary  physician  has  done  but  a  part  of  his 
duty  when  he  has  treated  them  professionally.  To  be  a  physician 
in  every  sense  worthy  the  confidence  of  his  patients  is  of  course 
his  first  duty ;  but  when,  by  God's  blessing  on  the  means 
employed,  he  witnesses  pain  removed  and  health  restored,  it  is 
a  duty  no  less  incumbent  to  impart  a  knowledge  of  that  which 
is  at  once  a  remedy  for  sin  and  a  protection  from  sin.  Idols, 
temples,  heathen  ceremonies,  and  means  for  gratifying  unbridled 
passions  await  the  restored  patient  as  he  goes  back  to  old  asso- 
ciations, and  the  medical  missionary  leaves  his  work  but  half 
accomplished  if  his  patient  is  allowed  to  quit  the  hospital  without 
a  knowledge  of  God's  commands  and  of  a  Saviour's  love.  Dif- 
ferent methods  for  accomphshing  this  have  been  previously  tried ; 
but  during  the  year  under  review  I  have  been  especially  gratified 
with  the  result  attending  the  presentation,  in  words  of  Scripture 
as  far  as  possible,  of  subjects  embracing  fundamental  truths. 
During  the  lesson  hour  it  is  usual  to  have  the  convalescent 
patients  assemble  in  a  large  ward,  each  with  a  Bible,  and  then, 
with  hospital  assistants  and  nurses  to  find  the  chapter  and  verse, 
teach  the  lesson  under  consideration  by  Scripture  texts  —  an 
assistant  at  the  same  time  making  note  of  these  chapters  and 
verses  as  a  guide  for  the  subsequent  private  readings  of  the 
patients. 


"  A  number  of  interesting  cases  might  be  mentioned  showing 
the  result  of  such  work.  One,  an  old  samurai  with  disdain  for 
all  religions,  proud  in  the  conscious  strength  of  arm  and  brain, 
and  with  contempt  for  the  native  faith,  entered  the  hospital  with 
pulmonary  consumption.  The  depth  and  power  of  the  truth  as 
revealed  in  the  Scriptures  impressed  him  profoundly,  and  after 
the  first  lesson  he  became  an  earnest  student  of  the  Bible.  It 
was  interesting  to  watch  the  mental  and  spiritual  awakening  and 
the  deepening  interest  in  the  truth  until  he  finally  accepted  Christ 
as  his  Saviour.  Since  leaving  the  hospital  he  has  been  regular  in 
his  attendance  upon  the  service,  and  happy  in  his  new  life  and 
hope.  Another,  with  a  similar  experience,  was  a  school-teacher 
in  the  city.  Still  another  was  a  young  man  from  Nagoya.  His 
parents  were  wealthy,  but  strong  Buddhists.  He  became  a  Chris- 
tian in  the  hospital,  but  fearing  to  return  home  before  he  had 
received  baptism  remained,  though  well,  until  he  could  be 
received  to  church  membership.  I  have  recently  heard  from 
him  as  strong  and  active  in  the  faith  though  partly  disinherited  by 
his  father.  He  is  now  a  trustee  of  the  schools  under  our  Pres- 
byterian friends  in  that  city.  These  men  were  first  impressed, 
as  one  of  them  recently  said,  with  the  reasonableness  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  words  of  God  appealed  to  their  judgment,  his 
love  touched  their  hearts.  It  is  a  fresh  illustration  of  an  impor- 
tant truth  :  *  Man's  word  is  lifeless  and  without  power  to  enforce 
itself;  the  Spirit  of  God  is  never  absent  from  his  Word.' 

"  I  thus  refer  to  our  experience  in  this  line  of  work,  believing 
it  will  not  be  without  interest  to  those  having  the  conduct  of 
hospitals  on  the  mission  field,  and  who  wish  to  make  them,  as 
most  do,  a  centre  of  Christian  influence  as  well  as  of  scientific 
and  humanitarian  practice.  As  Christian  physicians  in  charge 
of  such  hospitals,  we  have  placed  within  our  hands  exceptional 
helps  to  reach  the  heart.  The  origin  of  disease  in  many  cases 
is  such  as  to  bring  strong  self-reproach  and  condemnation  to  the 
individual,  an  experience  which  is  intensified  and  which  hardens 
and  petrifies  character  if  the  suffering  is  borne,  as  it  too  fre- 
quently has  to  be,  in  the  midst  of  censorious  and  unsympathizing 
relatives.  It  is  just  here  I  am  convinced  that  much  of  the 
benefit  of  the  well-conducted  mission  hospital,  where  every 
employee  is  in  sympathy  with  his  chief,  is  realized. 

"  Physical  suffering  is  relieved ;  this  is  much.  But  in  my 
experience  this  alone  places  the  recipient  under  an  embarrassing 


obligation.  It  is  rather  when  this  is  accompanied  by  acts  and 
expressions  of  Christian  sympathy,  which  the  patient  soon  learns 
is  but  an  application  to  human  needs  of  the  wonderful  story  of 
divine  love  and  redemption,  that  pain  and  suffering  become  trans- 
rriuted  into  an  uplifting  and  purifying  agency,  and  awaken  in  the 
individual  true  gratitude  toward  the  hospital  and  those  connected 
therewith.  One  of  our  evangelists,  after  kindly  visiting  us  a  few 
times,  remarked  :  '  Why,  there  is  no  place  where  Christian  work 
produces  such  immediate  results  as  here.' 

"Our  medical  work  includes  the  following  heads:  (i)  For 
patients  in  hospital,  pupils  in  nurses'  school,  and  for  hospital 
employees.  These  include  morning  prayers,  which  all  are  encour- 
aged to  attend ;  conversations  and  Bible  readings  with  individual 
patients  at  their  bedside  ;  the  loaning  of  tracts,  rehgious  journals, 
and  Scripture  portions ;  a  Sunday  morning  service  at  ten  o'clock 
in  the  wards ;  a  Monday  morning  prayer-meeting  for  the  hospital 
employees  ;  a  general  preaching  service  Sunday  afternoon  at  two 
o'clock,  the  people  of  the  neighborhood  being  encouraged  to 
attend  ;  a  Sabbath- school  from  three  to  four  ;  a  Tuesday  evening 
general  meeting  for  special  study  of  the  Bible  ;  and  a  Friday  night 
prayer-meeting  for  the  nurses. 

"(2)   Service  for  the  out-patients  on  clinic  days. 

"(3)  House-to-house  visitation  among  patients  who  have  gone 
out  from  the  hospital  after  treatment ;  and 

"(4)   Medical  touring. 

"  This  last  form  of  service  —  one  of  the  most  pleasant  in  which 
the  medical  missionary  can  engage, — has,  owing  to  the  demands 
of  hospital  and  school  work,  been  very  limited.  The  method 
adopted,  and  one  to  which,  from  its  applicability  to  Japan  to-day 
with  the  increased  intelligence  of  the  country  physicians,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  refer  to  at  length,  is  as  follows  :  confer  with  a 
few  evangelists  in  a  certain  region,  have  them  arrange  for  a  series 
of  dispensary  services  in  places  where  mission  medical  work  may 
be  helpful  in  awakening  or  deepening  interest  in  Christian  truth, 
and  send  forward  a  hospital  assistant  to  enlist,  with  the  evangel- 
ists of  the  locality,  the  cooperative  sympathy  of  the  local  physi- 
cians, it  being  understood  that  the  medical  missionary  will  work 
with  the  local  physician  and  commit  the  subsequent  care  of  the 
cases,  with  copies  of  prescriptions,  to  him.  Such  cooperation 
on  our  part  is  rendered  further  necessary  by  the  legal  requirements 
regulating  medical  practice.     On  the  day  fixed  the  sick  of  the 


12 

region  assemble  at  the  place  appointed  —  usually  the  Christian 
chapel  —  and  after  a  brief  religious  service  work  for  them  is 
begun,  an  evangelist  in  the  meantime  talking  with  and  distribut- 
ing tracts  among  those  in  the  waiting-room.  At  night  a  general 
ser\^ice  is  held,  four  or  five  addresses,  emphasizing  the  practical 
philanthropic  character  of  Christianity,  are  made,  Christian  tracts 
are  distributed,  and  finally  especial  attention  is  drawn  to  the  work 
of  the  local  evangelist.  The  following  day  move  on  to  the  next 
appointment,  leaving  the  awakened  interest,  greater  or  less,  to  the 
especial  care  of  the  Japanese  brother  laboring  there. 

"  This  form  of  medical  work  is  expansive  in  its  influence  and, 
if  care  be  taken  to  visit  such  places  as  will  subsequently  be  faith- 
fully looked  after  by  the  nearest  church  or  evangelist,  becomes 
productive  of  permanent  good.  Medical  touring  received  much 
attention  in  the  early  days  of  our  mission  and  the  time  for  its 
usefulness  has  not  passed.  It  affords  to-day,  as  it  ever  will,  the 
same  signal  and  pecuHar  opportunities  for  presenting  the  gospel 
message,  emphasized  by  practical  demonstrations  of  Christian  love 
and  charity.  We  hope  for  increased  opportunities  for  this  line 
of  work  in  future." 


Dr.  Wallace  Taylor,  of  Japan,  presents  his  testimony  in  these 
words :  — 

"  The  position  that  medical  work  occupied  in  general  mission- 
ary work  twenty  years  ago  in  the  Japan  field,  and  what  could  be 
accomplished  by  it,  was  very  different  from  what  it  now  is.  Then 
we  could  open  up  a  new  field  by  organizing  a  small  dispensary, 
and  in  connection  with  it  have  a  place  for  general  missionar)' 
work ;  we  could  keep  this  point  open  for  general  missionarj^  work 
by  visiting  it  and  holding  a  clinic  there  once  every  two  or  three 
weeks,  while  a  clerical  missionary  could  neither  open  up  a  new 
place  of  work  nor  hold  one  after  it  was  opened  up.  All  the 
places  of  work  the  mission  had  at  that  time  outside  of  the  open 
ports  were  opened  up  and  held  in  this  way  by  medical  work. 
This  continued  for  some  four  or  five  years,  till  the  prejudices  of 
the  people  and  their  opposition  to  missionaries  and  their  work 
gradually  wore  away  with  their  increased  intercourse  with  Euro- 
peans. After  a  time  the  clerical  missionary  could  open  up  and 
hold  a  place  of  work  without  the  aid  of  medical  work.  During 
these  first  few  years  the  medical  work  was  the  main  arm  of  the 


13 

work  outside  of  the  open  ports.  Without  it  comparatively  little 
would  have  been  done.  It  was  invaluable,  and  was  so  generally 
recognized  over  and  above  the  relief  it  gave  to  the  sick  and 
needy.  It  was  work  that  was  at  once  appreciated  and  esteemed 
by  the  people  generally.  At  the  centres  where  it  was  carried  on 
it  fast  broke  down  the  prejudices  and  opposition  to  our  religious 
teaching  and  opened  the  way  for  general  evangelical  work.  But 
gradually  a  change  came  about  as  the  people  became  more 
accustomed  to  our  presence  and  work,  till  finally  the  clerical 
missionary  could  open  up  a  place  of  work  and  hold  it  as  well  as,  if 
not  better,  than  the  medical  man,  and  then  medical  work  grad- 
ually dropped  back  into  its  more  legitimate  channel  of  minister- 
ing to  the  wants  of  the  sick  and  afflicted  and  bringing  them 
relief. 

"I  continued  to  have  out-stations  for  medical  work  which  I  fre- 
quently visited,  and  where  I  did  more  or  less  evangelical  work, 
till  by  a  gradual  change  in  the  conditions  of  the  work  I  saw  a  less 
number  of  patients  on  my  tours  than  I  should  have  seen  had  I 
remained  at  home.  And  the  clerical  missionary  having  no  further 
need  of  medical  work  to  aid  him  specially  at  any  point,  I  changed 
my  plan  of  work,  ceased  medical  tours,  and  confined  my  medical 
work  to  the  two  centres  of  Osaka  and  Kobe.  The  patients 
sought  me,  and  there  was  no  special  advantage  in  my  going  out 
to  find  them. 

"This  now  is  the  condition  of  mission  medical  work  in  Japan. 
It  occupies  much  the  same  place  here  that  benevolent  medical 
work  in  the  United  States  does,  being  largely  humanitarian.  The 
advantage  that  it  gives  the  medical  man  is  that  it  brings  many 
within  reach  that  otherwise  might  not  be  accessible,  and  through 
the  relief  afforded  it  gives  access  to  the  heart  and  opportunity  for 
Christian  instruction.  Another  advantage  not  to  be  overlooked 
is  that  those  benefited  by  medical  treatment  and  instructed  in 
religious  truth  carry  their  impressions  home  with  them  and 
become  the  means  of  sending  others  that  they  also  may  secure 
the  same  aid.  Thus  frequently  our  patients  become  the  starting- 
point  of  evangelical  work  off  in  remote  and  obscure  places  where 
the  gospel  truth  would  otherwise  not  penetrate  for  some  time  to 
come.  Or  if  they  are  from  places  where  missionary  work  is  known 
and  already  carried  on,  it  gives  an  added  power  and  influence  to 
the  work  done  there.  To  all,  and  especially  to  those  from  remote 
fields,  it  gives  a  practical  example  of  the  blessed  fruits  of  the 


14 

gospel.  After  my  work  had  become  well  known,  in  no  other  way 
could  I  reach  so  many  persons  and  exert  so  wide  an  evangelical 
influence  as  through  medical  work.  Take  my  report  for  1892 
when  I  individually  treated  and  exerted  an  influence  on  nearly 
2,500  persons,  many  of  them  from  distant  and  widely  scattered 
places  in  the  south  and  west  of  the  empire,  and  where  I  had 
nearly  13,000  consultations,  and  where,  with  my  assistants,  who 
are  Christian  men,  saw  nearly  3,500  persons  and  had  over  21,000 
consultations  —  where  we  saw  professionally  over  800  persons  in 
their  homes,  and  made  over  2,500  visits  to  the  homes  of  patients, 
carrying  our  Christian  influence  with  us  as  a  Christian  man 
must,  —  and  this,  it  will  be  seen,  gives  an  opportunity  of  in- 
fluence under  peculiarly  favorable  circumstances  that  few  clerical 
missionaries  in  this  country  enjoy,  though  they  do  a  large  amount 
of  touring. 

"  It  is  true  it  is  largely  a  work  of  seed-sowing  and  others  gather 
in  the  harvest,  but  it  is  not  void  of  its  legitimate  fruits  ;  instances 
of  which  very  frequently  come  to  my  knowledge.  Several  men 
who  do  considerable  touring  have  frequently  remarked  to  me 
that  they  find  persons  almost  wherever  they  go  who  have  been  to 
my  clinic  and  that  many  of  them  know  quite  a  little  in  regard  to 
Christian  doctrine,  having  heard  it  while  attending  the  dispensary 
or  hospital. 

"  I  believe  in  keeping  everything  native  style  so  far  as  I  can,  and 
hence  our  hospital  and  dispensary  are  native  even  beyond  their 
highest  efficiency  in  the  line  of  sanitary  equipments  and  in 
provision  for  taking  care  of  the  sick.  Hence  we  are  in  close 
contact  with  the  people,  and  more  in  harmony  with  Japanese 
life,  and  our  services  are  largely  within  their  means. 

"  Medical  work  as  a  branch  of  missionary  work  should  be  well  and 
closely  followed  up  by  Christian  teaching  and  personal  influence, 
collectively  and  especially  individually,  in  giving  time  and  atten- 
tion to  the  patient  in  the  hospital  and  in  following  up  the  patients 
attending  the  chnics  to  their  homes.  The  medical  practitioner 
•  with  a  large  work  on  his  hands  has  neither  the  time  nor  the 
strength  to  properly  attend  to  this.  He  must  keep  up  the  med- 
ical side  of  his  work  if  he  wishes  to  make  it  a  success,  and  he 
should  have  the  aid  of  an  efficient  evangelistic  helper  (a  lady,  I 
beheve,  is  much  to  be  preferred  for  many  reasons)  to  assist  in 
rendering  the  Christian  side  of  his  work  most  efficient  and 
productive  of  largest  results." 


15 

FROM    TURKEY. 
VI. 

Dr.  M.  p.  Parmelee,  of  Trebizond,  Turkey,  thus  writes  :  — 

"  I  can  most  heartily  testify  to  the  great  value  of  medical  serv- 
ice in  connection  with  missionary  work.     This  value  consists  :  — 

"  First,  In  the  great  relief  from  suffering  it  affords  those  among 
whom  missionaries  labor.  \\''hen  the  physician  is  so  thoroughly 
prepared  for  his  work  that  he  does  not  hesitate  to  remove  cata- 
racts or  perform  other  capital  operations  in  surgery,  and  is  able 
to  grapple  successfully  with  difficult  cases  of  acute  and  chronic 
disease,  he  may  and  does  save  life  and  relieve  suffering  to  an 
almost  miraculous  degree.  And  even  when  he  is  but  partially 
equipped  as  a  medical  man  he  may  do  much  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. This  is  especially  the  case  when  one  is  located  in  remote 
corners  where  the  missionary  is  the  only  medical  man  of  any 
kind  to  be  found. 

"  The  value  of  medical  missionary  work  consists  :  — 

"  Second,  in  breaking  down  prejudice  and  opening  all  doors 
to  the  free  entrance  of  the  missionary  with  his  message  of  peace. 
This  is  Christlike.  The  man  who  is  able  to  go  about  'healing 
the  sick'  is  literally  imitating  his  Master.  By  this  means  he  not 
only  gains  a  listening  ear,  but  he  commends  Christianity  for  just 
what  it  is,  a  benediction  to  all  men. 

"  You  are  aware  that  I  entered  the  missionary  field  without 
any  special  knowledge  of  medicine,  and  that  I  afterward  studied 
in  order  to  supply  a  lack  I  seriously  felt.  If  I  were  to  begin  my 
missionary  life  anew,  I  would  start  out  with  a  far  better  knowledge 
of  medicine  than  I  ever  had.  I  do  not  say  that  all  missionaries 
should  prepare  themselves  in  this  way,  but  it  seems  to  me  more 
prominence  should  be  given  to  this  branch  than  at  present.  For 
instance,  if  in  every  station  of  three  or  more  missionaries  one 
should  be  a  thoroughly  equipped  medical  man,  my  idea  would  be 
about  filled  out.  But  such  medical  men  should  be,  first  of  all, 
fully  consecrated  missionaries,  and  afterward  physicans,  using  their 
medical  skill  for  the  higher  purpose  of  saving  men.  The  diffi- 
culty of  finding  such  men  doubtless  has  been  a  reason  why  no 
more  medical  men  have  entered  this  service.  Perhaps,  however, 
suitable  agitation  of  this  subject  would  bring  forward  the  right 
kind  of  men. 

"  As  to  the  possible  perils  of  medical  work  on  the  secular  side, 
I  cannot  see  that  they  are  greater   than    in    purely  educational 


I6 

work.     In  either  case  the  prevention  is  thorough  missionary  con- 
secration." 

VII. 

Dr.  William  S.  Dodd,  of  Cesarea,  Turkey,  gives  his  views  as 
follows  :  — 

"The  one  great  underlying  principle  of  medical  missionary 
work  is  that  it  is  to  be  an  agency  for  preaching  the  gospel.  It 
is  not  to  be  mere  humanitarianism.  It  must  be  used  to  open 
hearts  to  the  truth.  If  it  does  not  do  this,  it  is  a  failure.  The 
work  of  every  missionary  physician  is  to  be  tested  by  this.  This 
it  may  do  in  various  ways.  At  the  time  of  treatment  the  patients 
and  their  friends,  anxious  to  receive  a  benefit,  may  be  induced 
to  listen,  whereas  under  other  circumstances  they  would  not  be 
willing.  Again,  gratitude  may  be  the  motive  that  will  lead  them 
to  listen.  A  less  direct  working  of  the  physician's  influence  is  by 
the  reputation  which  his  skill  may  give  to  the  missionaries  as  a 
class  or  to  the  Protestant  community,  thus  bringing  outsiders  to 
our  services.  Gaining  access  to  houses  otherwise  closed,  gaining 
acquaintance  with  people  otherwise  inaccessible,  accustoming 
them  to  associate  with  us  so  as  to  dispel  their  false  notions  in 
respect  to  us  and  our  work,  gaining  an  influence  over  them  so 
that  they  shall  respect  us  and  our  opinions  —  these  are  some  of 
the  privileges  of  the  physician. 

"  x^nother  most  powerful  influence  is  due  to  showing  the  true 
spirit  of  Christ  in  love  and  mercy  to  the  poor  and  to  the  suffering. 
It  is  in  this  connection  that  the  merely  benevolent  part  of  the 
work  shows  its  importance.  Doing  good  to  humanity  is  in  this 
country  accounted  a  great  thing,  but  it  is  carried  out  with  a 
selfish  motive,  that  of  gaining  merit.  When  we  can  persuade  the 
people  that  we  are  trying  to  do  good  for  Christ's  sake  it  is  a  great 
point  gained. 

"  The  medical  missionary  may  be  himself  a  preacher.  He  may 
do  his  preaching  simply  in  conversation  with  his  patients  as  they 
come  to  him  for  treatment.  On  the  other  hand  he  may  do  little 
of  this,  but  may  do  regular  preaching  from  the  pulpit  and  hold 
stated  services.  Again,  the  medical  missionary  may  be  no 
preacher,  and  may  perhaps  do  very  little  direct  religious  work 
himself,  while  yet  his  humanitarian  work  coupled  with  a  consist- 
ent life  may  enable  his  associates  to  do  far  more  than  they  could 
otherwise  do. 


I? 

"  The  conditions  of  the  work  in  different  lands  are  doubtless 
very  different.  I  know  that  I  find  the  medical  work  here  far  dif- 
ferent from  what  I  have  read  of  such  work  in  China  and  Africa. 
I  attempt  to  do  very  little  of  religious  speaking  to  my  patients  as 
they  come  to  me  for  treatment.  To  Greeks  and  Armenians, 
nominal  Christians,  the  few  words  that  could  be  spoken  thus 
would  be  assented  to  as  a  matter  of  course.  Christian  senti- 
ments and  religious  phrases  are  at  their  tongues'  ends ;  but  they 
need  to  have  patient  instruction  and  to  see  holy  living.  To 
Mohammedans  direct  words  in  regard  to  Christ  would  quickly 
lead  to  complications  with  the  government  authorities.  I  find 
my  chief  sphere  of  evangelistic  usefulness  independent  of  my 
medical  work,  teaching  in  Sabbath- schools,  occasional  preaching, 
superintending  a  young  men's  prayer-meeting,  and  especially  in 
the  out-stations  and  villages  in  attracting  crowds  to  the  preacher's 
house  and  to  the  chapel.  While  directly  engaged  in  my  medical 
work  I  do  not  attempt  to  do  much  religious  work.  Often  in 
visiting  the  sick  there  is  opportunity  to  enter  into  conversation, 
oftener  there  is  not.  In  my  Dispensary  likewise,  which  I  have 
just  been  enabled  to  open,  I  do  not  have  any  daily  religious  exer- 
cises. When  patients  stay  in  my  guest-rooms  I  have  prayers 
with  them  every  day,  provide  them  with  Bibles  and  other  reading 
matter,  have  Bible  pictures  on  the  walls,  and  do  all  that  I  can  to 
bring  the  truth  to  them.  This  is,  I  believe,  the  method  of  highest 
usefulness  in  medical  work,  namely,  the  hospital.  It  is  for  this 
that  I  long,  not  merely  with  a  scientific  longing  but  with  a  spirit- 
ual longing. 

"The  difficulties  that  beset  the  work  are  very  great.  The  chief 
of  these  is  the  money  difficulty.  I  do  not  mean  the  funds  to  sup- 
port the  work  ;  my  practice  supplies  that  and  more.  I  mean  the 
necessity  of  asking  money  from  the  patients.  This  necessity  is 
based  on  three  grounds  :  First,  funds  must  of  course  be  raised  to 
pay  my  expenses ;  second,  justice  must  be  done  to  other  physi- 
cians who  live  by  their  practice  ;  third,  the  people  must  not  be 
pauperized.  The  first  of  these  is  self-evident.  In  regard  to  the 
native  physicians  here  a  word  should  be  said.  The  state  of  things 
is  very  different  from  what  it  was  thirty  years  ago  when  there  were 
so  few  educated  physicians  in  the  land.  Now  there  are  many 
who  have  been  educated  in  Constantinople,  Athens,  or  America. 
My  relations  with  many  of  these  are  of  the  pleasantest,  and  I  fre- 
quently consult  with  them.     To  do  a  professedly  free  practice 


would  be  a  serious  injury  to  them,  for  even  well-to-do  patients 
would  at  once  take  advantage  of  it.  It  is  a  proverbial  saying  in 
this  country  that  '  if  shrouds  were  free,  every  one  would  die  to- 
day.' In  the  third  place,  to  ask  for  money  is  a  necessity  for  the 
people  themselves.  I  am  not  inclined  to  look  on  the  dark  side 
of  people's  characters,  but  I  believe  that  if  I  should  leave  my  fees 
to  be  paid  out  of  gratitude,  I  would  not  receive  ten  paras  in  the 
year.  The  sense  of  gratitude  among  this  people  is  not  strong 
enough  for  that.  I  demand  my  fees  as  a  right,  and  where  I 
think  people  can  pay  I  refuse  t6  treat  them  without  the  money 
and  often  send  them  away.  Well-to-do  people  will  lie  and  resort 
to  every  artifice  to  make  me  believe  them  poor.  To  encourage 
such  shameless  begging  would,  I  feel,  be  a  wrong  to  the  people 
themselves.  My  principle  is  never  to  send  any  poor  person  away 
untreated  for  lack  of  money.  I  do  send  people  away  untreated 
who  I  believe  have  money  but  lack  the  willingness  to  give  it. 
That  I  sometimes  make  mistakes  in  this  I  do  not  doubt.  But  I 
am  far  oftener  mistaken  in  being  deceived  on  the  other  side.  It 
often  makes  me  groan  in  spirit  to  have  to  haggle  over  a  few  pias- 
tres. I  would  be  glad  never  to  mention  money  at  all.  On  the 
other  hand  the  fact  that  I  carry  on  my  practice  on  a  business 
basis  as  other  physicians  do  gives  me  a  standing  as  a  layman 
among  them  rather  than  as  a  clergyman,  which,  makes  my  Prot- 
estantism less  suspicious  to  some  than  it  would  otherwise  be. 

'•  I  would  not  have  you  think  that  I  do  a  small  amount  of  work 
among  the  poor.  Three  fourths  of  the  1,300  visits  that  I  made 
last  year  were  entirely  free. 

"The  danger  of  secularization  of  the  missionary  himself  is 
great,  but  that  is  a  temptation  not  confined  to  this  branch  of 
missionary  work.  It  is  in  my  experience  no  greater  than  the 
danger  of  what  I  may  call  '  professionalization  '  for  the  clerical 
missionary.  Active  religious  work  is  the  safeguard  against  such 
secularization.  Of  the  humane  side  of  the  work  I  have  said 
little.  It  is  second  to  the  evangelizing  part,  but  only  second. 
Especially  in  cases  where  surgery  is  required  is  this  most  evident 
and  it  is  in  this  most  especially  that  my  work  lies,  for  even  the 
best  native  physicians  do  little  surgical  work.  I  esteem  it  a 
blessed  privilege  to  relieve  physical  suffering,  even  if  I  have  not 
been  able  to  impart  spiritual  instruction  at  the  same  time.  In 
the  training  of  natives  to  become  physicians  I  have  done  nothing, 
and  it  is  not  needed.     There  are  2:ood  medical  colleges  in  Aintab 


19 

and  Beirut  accessible  to  young  men ;  and  they  most  of  them  find 
means  to  go  abroad  beside. 

"  In  conclusion  I  wish  to  say  what  appears  to  me  to  be  the 
special  office  of  the  medical  missionary  work  in  this  land  at  this 
time.  It  is  not  in  its  relation  to  the  Armenians  and  Greeks,  but 
to  the  ruling  race.  It  is  to  become  established,  to  gain  name  and 
position,  to  gain  skill  and  experience,  to  win  love  and  confidence 
among  the  Turks,  in  order  at  the  present  time  to  assist  in  remov- 
ing their  prejudices  against  the  name  of  Christ,  and  in  order  to 
have  the  agency  established  and  working  which,  in  the  near 
future  when  they  shall  be  free  to  hear  and  accept  the  gospel, 
shall  be  a  mighty  power  to  draw  them  to  Christ." 

VIII. 

The  testimony  of  Dr.  Grace  M.  Kimball,  of  Van,  Turkey,  is  as 
follows  :  — 

"  Christ's  original  command  to  the  Apostles  and  to  the  Church 
was  to  go  and  preach,  teach,  and  heal  the  sick.  Therefore,  in 
my  conception,  the  missionary  physician  stands  as  a  member  of 
this  evangelical  trinity  —  a  trinity  formerly  united  in  one  person, 
but  now  in  our  day  of  specialization  necessarily  divided  into 
three  branches  of  the  divinely  ordained  work.  He  needs  make 
no  apology  or  feel  no  reproach  because  his  energies  are  chiefly 
absorbed  by  the  physical  necessities  of  his  constituency.  I  ven- 
ture to  affirm  that  the  most  injurious  mistakes  that  have  been 
made  in  mission  work  have  been  made  through  an  almost  super- 
stitious reverence  for  so-called  spirituality  :  and  a  corresponding 
blindness  to  the  real  everyday,  practical  needs  and  problems  of 
the  native  community. 

"  As  a  work  of  Christian  humanity,  medical  missionary  work 
speaks  loudly  for  itself.  We  all  at  home  have  had  experience 
of  the  indispensability  of  the  skilful  Christian  physician.  We 
have  only  to  imagine  our  lives  passed  where  he  was  not,  to  real- 
ize what  he  is  to  us  and  what  he  is  to  immense  communities 
utterly  destitute  of  any  medical  aid  save  that  of  the  missionary 
doctor.  The  number  of  valuable  lives  every  year  spared  to 
families  which  otherwise  would  have  been  plunged  into  deepest 
poverty  and  distress,  the  number  of  children  saved  from  lives  of 
total  helplessness  through  blindness,  and  the  amount  of  excru- 
ciating suffering  spared,  leaves  nothing  to  be  proved  as  to  the 
humanitarianism. 


20 

"  Its  power  in  evangelistic  work  (so  called  because  I  consider 
that  the  evangel  is  as  clearly  given  in  teaching  and  in  medical 
course  as  in  any  other)  depends  on  the  view  we  take  of  this  work. 
If  we  regard  its  results  as  adequately  reported  in  each  year's 
tabular  view,  in  the  number  of  church  members  received  or  souls 
saved,  medical  missions  are  a  total  failure.  If  we  regard  its 
results  as  only  to  be  shown  by  a  broad  view  of  the  condition  of 
the  people  individually,  as  families,  and  socially  —  a  view  extend- 
ing back  over  years  and  forward  over  years  —  if  we  look  for  deep, 
far-reaching  changes  in  the  whole  community,  then  we  shall  find, 
I  am  sure,  that  the  medical  work  has  not  had  an  inferior  part  in 
bringing  about  these  changes.  The  number  of  persons  who  defi- 
nitely come  out  as  evangelical  Christians  as  the  actual  result  of 
the  medical  work  of  medical  missionaries  must  be  very  small. 
But  the  number  of  people  who  are  brought  into  more  sympathy 
with  that  work  and  its  official  representatives ;  the  barriers  that 
are  broken  down,  and  beyond  this  the  work  that  is  done  in  elevat- 
ing the  conceptions  of  the  people  as  to  their  duty  to  and  care  of 
the  '  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ' ;  and  the  practical  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  Spirit  of  Christ :  —  these  things  do  not  go  down  in 
tabular  views ;  nor  can  a  single  decade  tell  the  whole  story  of 
their  influence. 

"  I  believe  too  that  the  medical  work  is  beneficent  enough,  per- 
suasive enough,  and  Christlike  enough  to  stand  on  its  own  merits, 
and  to  be  able  to  dispense  with  the  often  used  concomitant  of 
tracts  and  dispensary  preaching.  I  believe  that  there  is  a  time 
and  place  for  everything ;  and  that  among  people  of  any  degree 
of  intelligence  and  discernment  this  forcing  of  spiritual  things 
upon  them  when  they  are  bent  on  physical  help  and  often  weary 
and  racked  with  pain  can  but  be  received  in  the  vast  majority  of 
cases  either  with  the  Oriental  hypocrisy  which  regards  it  as  the 
price  paid  for  benefit  received  or  with  a  stolid  indifference  which 
covers  very  pronounced  but  individual  opinions.  A  few  are 
touched  and  genuinely  so ;  but  would  they  not  be  as  strongly 
influenced  without  these  ?  We  have  no  precedent  or  precept  for 
it  in  the  Bible.  The  physician  himself,  conducting  a  work  free 
from  the  suspicions  of  proselytizing,  will  find  and  recognize 
opportunities  for  teUing  exhortations. 

"  I  see  much  written  in  missionary  literature  that  makes  me 
marvel.  First,  the  wonderful  number  of  patients  which  some  — 
many  —  missionary  physicians  are  able  to  see  and  treat  in  a  given 


time.  I  should  greatly  like  to  know  if  any  responsible  doctor  at 
home  would  pretend  to  see  from  150  to  250  netv  patients  a  day, 
—  a  general  practitioner  obliged  to  cope  with  every  known  human 
infirmity.  Could  he  make  a  conscientious  scientific  examination 
of  the  case  and  its  history,  arrive  at  a  diagnosis,  decide  on  the 
treatment  judiciously,  instruct  the  patient  as  to  hygienic  and 
other  precautions  —  all  in  from  three  to  ten  minutes,  and  keep  it 
up  ten  to  twelve  hours  in  the  day  ?  If  it  cannot  be  done,  is  not 
the  missionary  doctor  in  danger  of  playing  the  well-meaning  but 
actual  charlatan?  Again,  is  the  practice,  of  giving  advice  and 
medicine  free  to  all,  wise  in  its  effects  on  the  people  or  just  to  the 
constituents  at  home  ?  Here  again  :  a  medical  missionary  goes 
on  an  itinerating  trip,  visiting  a  large  number  of  villages,  staying  a 
day  or  two  in  each,  seeing  all  the  multitude  who  come,  free,  giving 
each  a  dose  of  medicine,  preaching  the  gospel,  and  passing  on. 
This  makes  a  very  teUing  letter  to  the  missionary  magazine,  yields 
a  great  and  fascinating  excitement  to  the  missionary.  There  is 
an  intoxication  about  seeing  crowds  around  one,  pleading  for 
help,  kissing  your  hand,  groveling  at  your  feet,  blessing  you 
with  tears  in  their  eyes.  The  people  for  the  moment  are  enthu- 
siastic and  grateful,  believing  that  they  have  received  great  good 
at  the  hands  of  the  missionary.  But  will  there  not  be  a  revulsion  ? 
Patients  with  the  colic  or  summer  complaint  or  some  trivial  or 
acute  affection  may  have  been  cured.  But  upon  the  vast  major- 
ity little  or  no  good  will  have  been  wrought  physically ;  and  this 
physical  insutficiency  will  effectually  counteract  any  spiritual  im- 
pressions which  may  have  been  received.  And  yet  the  price  paid 
for  this  has  been  a  lavish  expenditure  of  physical  strength  on  the 
part  of  the  medical  missionary,  and  of  medicines  and  other  med- 
ical adjuvants,  much  of  which  can  legitimately  be  considered 
thrown  away. 

"All  this  in  the  way  of  a  meditation,  not  as  a  judgment !  And 
all  arises  from  the  deep  conviction  that  we  are  fallen  on  days  when 
in  every  department  of  labor,  sacred  and  secular,  sound  practical 
principles  and  methods  are  demanded.  The  days  of  sentiment 
are  over,  and  facts  are  called  for." 

IX. 

Dr.  D.  M.  B.  Thom,  of  Mardin,  Turkey,  thus  writes  :  — 
"  The  work  of  the  missionary  physician  should  be  considered 
under  three  heads  :  — 


22 

"  First,  his  relation  to  his  missionary  associates ;  second,  his 
relation  to  the  evangelistic  work ;  third,  his  relation  to  the  people, 
or  the  humane  side. 

"  ( I )  His  relations  to  his  missionary  associates.  A  missionary 
who  has  no  physician  associated  with  him  is  under  a  constant 
strain  in  regard  to  his  family.  Should  they  be  taken  ill  or  any- 
thing befall  them,  '  What  am  I  to  do  ? '  is  the  question  constantly 
occurring  to  him.  And  when  sickness  comes  it  is  such  a  strain 
upon  the  nervous  system  as  to-  almost  incapacitate  him  from  his 
regular  work.  Missionaries  without  a  physician  within  call  are 
not  able  to  do  the  work  they  otherwise  would,  nor  are  they  able 
to  hold  out  on  the  field  so  long.  It  remains  a  terrible  burden 
upon  their  hearts  in  times  of  illness,  especially  if  the  case  termi- 
nate unfavorably.  The  thought  continually  comes  up,  '  Had  a 
physician  been  here  perhaps  our  loved  one  might  have  been 
saved.'  So  that  as  far  as  his  associates  are  concerned,  the 
physician  is  a  necessity  and  worth  all   that  is  spent  upon  him. 

"  (2)  His  relation  to  the  evangelistic  work.  It  is  a  question  in 
my  mind  if  so  much  is  accomplished  on  this  Une  as  some  glowing 
descriptions  from  other  countries  and  fields  would  lead  us  to 
believe.  True,  multitudes  are  seen  by  the  physician  that  could 
never  be  seen  by  the  regular  missionary,  and  seeds  are  sown  in 
places  where  none  but  the  physician  can  go  ;  and  his  life,  methods 
and  conversation  before  the  people  ought  to  count  for  something, 
for  our  lives  ought  to  be  'an  epistle  to  be  read  of  all  men.'  If 
one's  work  is  in  the  hospital  and  he  has  it  worked  up  to  a  fine 
thing,  his  opportunities  for  reaching  those  under  his  care  are  of 
the  best ;  for  when  a  patient  is  under  your  daily  care  he  will  accept 
anything  at  your  hand,  whereas  if  he  were  only  an  outdoor  patient, 
he  may  listen  to  you  and  he  may  not.  I  have  repeatedly  been 
told  '  Enough  of  that ;  tend  to  our  bodies  now.'  The  evangel- 
istic work  is  helped  indirectly  by  the  physicians  relations  with  the 
local  government.  His  brother  missionaries  often  have  a  surer 
footing  and  a  stronger  hold  on  the  people  through  the  physician's 
relations  to  '  the  powers  that  be.'  The  doctor  is  a  privileged 
person  with  them  and  for  his  sake  they  will  bear  a  great  deal  and 
do  a  great  deal  that  they  would  not  but  for  him.  Nor  does  the 
doctor  need  to  cringe  to  them,  or  serve  them  for  nothing.  He  is 
thought  the  more  of  when  he  charges  a  good  fee  for  his  services. 
I  speak  from  personal  experience.  My  relations  here  with  those 
in  authority  have  always  been  of  the  very  best.     Wherever  it  has 


23 

been  my  fortune  to  come  in  contact  with  the  government  author- 
ities, I  have  never  received  anything  but  the  most  poHte  attention. 
So  that  on  the  evangeUstic  side,  taking  all  these  items  into  con- 
sideration, the  missionary  physician  is  a  valuable  auxiliary. 

"  (3)  His  relation  to  the  people,  or  the  humane  side.  There  is 
no  language  sufificiently  strong  to  express  the  good  done  by  the 
missionary  physician  in  this  line.  It  is  not,  as  a  general  rule,  the 
habit  of  a  physician  to  speak  of  his  own  branch  of  the  work, 
but  as  the  questions  have  been  put  to  me  I  must  tell  things  as 
they  are  or  the  half  will  not  be  known.  Almost  everywhere  where 
the  missionary  physician  is  found  there  are  no  doctors  who  com- 
pare with  him  in  knowledge  or  skill,  in  surgery  especially,  so  that 
he  comes  as  a  Godsend  to  the  people  even  if  religion  is  left  out 
entirely ;  and  if  he  comes  with  both,  the  blessing  cannot  be  esti- 
mated. You  might  think  from  the  foregoing  that  all  the  natives 
flock  to  the  missionary  physicians.  By  no  means.  Do  all  our 
enlightened  American  people  pass  by  quacks  and  non-licensed 
doctors?  We  must  not  expect  too  much  of  these  people.  But 
the  missionary  physician  has  all  he  can  or  cares  to  do,  even  when 
he  charges  a  fee  or  takes  pay  for  the  medicine.  We  also  have 
other  communities  to  contend  with,  Catholics,  etc.,  who  do  more 
gratuitous  work  than  we  are  allowed  to  or  than  we  think  is  wise 
to  do.  And  but  few  Catholics  will  go  to  a  Protestant  physician  if 
one  of  his  own  faith  is  found  in  the  community,  even  if  he  be  a 
much  less  able  man.  The  missionary  physician's  work  from  a 
humanitarian  standpoint  cannot  be  gainsaid. 

"  As  to  the  training  of  native  medical  assistants  :  it  is  desirable 
if  they  would  be  contented  with  the  training  they  can  secure  in 
this  country.  But  when  they  become  ambitious  and  must  finish 
their  course  abroad  I  have  my  doubts  as  to  its  advisability ;  for 
example,  I  have  trained  four  ;  three  of  them  are  now  in  America. 
One  has  been  practising  for  over  ten  years  in  Chicago.  The  sec- 
ond, after  graduating  with  special  honors  and  spending  a  term  in 
St.  Luke's  hospital,  began  practice  in  the  same  city,  and  has 
since  married  an  American  girl  and  settled  down  for  Hfe.  The 
third,  not  yet  settled,  talks  of  returning  for  the  good  of  his 
people ;  the  fourth  remains  at  home  only  for  lack  of  funds  to 
take  him  elsewhere.  I  do  not  think  it  pays  to  raise  up  medical 
students  in  this  land  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  profession  in 
America.  According  to  my  experience  the  training  of  native 
medical  men  does  not  pay  for  the  time  expended  upon  them. 


24 

"  As  to  incidents  illustrating  the  value  of  this  arm  of  the  serv- 
ice :  they  are  innumerable.  As  mentioned  before,  the  physi- 
cian is  a  privileged  person  among  the  government  ofificials.  An 
incident  in  point :  our  governor,  who  is  now  here  for  the  second 
time  after  an  absence  of  a  year  and  a  half,  was  taken  ill  on  his 
arrival  the  first  time.  I  was  absent  then.  The  city  doctor,  army 
doctor,  and  a  doctor  of  the  Dominican  missionaries  were  called  in. 
Finding  him  in  a  critical  condition,  they  at  once  sent  for  the  city 
doctor  from  Diarbekir ;  so  that-  on  my  arrival  four  days  later  he 
was  being  seen  twice  a  day  by  four  doctors  !  They  had  given 
their  prognosis  that  he  could  not  live  to  exceed  four  days  ;  already 
two  or  more  of  the  four  were  gone  when  I  reached  home.  I  was 
at  once  sent  for.  Seeing  the  patient  in  company  with  the  four, 
I  made  a  critical  examination  of  the  case,  and  gave  it  as  my 
opinion  that  with  good  care  he  would  pull  through.  To  make 
a  long  story  short,  I  was  retained  for  the  case  and  my  patient 
recovered,  and  is  a  well  man  to-day.  From  that  time  to  this  he 
has  been  a  warm  and  stanch  friend  of  ours ;  has  helped  us 
through  a  number  of  tight  places,  where  if  he  had  not  been  a 
warm  friend  he  could  have  made  it  hard  for  us." 

FROM    CHINA. 
X. 

Dr.  H.  T.  Whitney,  of  the  Foochow  Mission,  presents  the 
following  historic  statement :  — 

MEDICAL   MISSIONS    IN   CHINA. 

"I.     The  place  of  the  medical  missionary  in  mission  work? 

"  Answer.  In  connection  with  well-established,  with  pioneer, 
with  evangelistic,  and  with  educational  work,  and  ought  not  to 
be  divorced  from  either. 

"II.     The  value  of  medical  missions? 

*' I.  The  humane  value:  It  saves  life  and  mitigates  suffering; 
it  also  prevents,  relieves,  and  cures  diseases  and  injurious  habits. 
This  point  might  be  drawn  out  indefinitely,  but  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  merely  note  the  mountain-peaks  and  hilltops  as  we  pass  down 
the  century. 

"  (i)  It  is  well  to  note  that  the  medical  profession  bestowed 
upon  China  its  first  great  discovery  in  this  century,  namely,  the 
art  of  vaccination  to  prevent  smallpox  —  the  greatest  disease 
scourge  of  China  next  to  Asiatic  cholera. 


25 

"  Edward  Jenner,  an  Englishman,  discovered  vaccination  in 
1797  and  made  it  known  in  1798;  and  in  the  short  period  of 
seven  years  after  (1S05)  Dr.  Alexander  Pearson,  surgeon  to  the 
East  India  Company,  introduced  it  into  China.  The  same  year 
he  wrote  a  treatise  on  The  Theory  and  Art  of  Vaccination,  which 
was  translated  into  Chinese  by  Sir  George  Staunton  and  pub- 
lished in  Canton.  He  labored  with  untiring  zeal  for  twenty-seven 
years,  when  it  became  thoroughly  established  in  the  Kwangtung 
province.  Dr.  Pearson's  principal  assistant,  Mr.  Yao,  became  the 
leading  Chinese  disseminator  of  vaccination  in  China  and  at  one 
time  he  went  by  invitation,  free  of  expense,  to  Peking  to  intro- 
duce it  there.  Twelve  years  after  Dr.  Pearson's  first  treatise  was 
pubhshed  Mr.  Yao  prepared  one  of  one  hundred  pages  to  which 
were  appended  three  odes  in  praise  of  vaccination  :  one  by  a 
governor-general.  In  thirty  years  Mr.  Yao  alone  vaccinated 
over  a  million  patients. 

"  By  the  combined  efforts  of  Dr.  Pearson  and  his  assistants  the 
art  was  extended  to  all  the  leading  provinces  of  the  empire. 
The  blessing  to  China  of  this  one  discovery  it  would  be  difficult 
to  overestimate ;  and  the  name  of  Dr.  Alexander  Pearson  will  go 
down  in  history  as  the  first  great  benefactor  of  China  of  this 
nineteenth  century.  Also  of  hwi  should  it  be  said  rather  than  of 
any  one  else  that  he  '  opened  China  to  the  gospel  at  the  point  of 
the  lancet.' 

"  (2)  To  Dr.  T.  R.  Colledge,  another  physician  to  the  East 
India  Company,  belongs  the  merit  of  establishing,  first  at  private 
expense  and  later  helped  by  voluntary  contributions,  the  first 
institution  in  China  for  the  relief  of  indigent  natives  —  from  1827 
to  1832.  This  work  made  a  marked  impression  upon  the  Chi- 
nese. '  The  institution  became  the  topic  of  conversation  through- 
out the  provinces,  and  praises  and  gratitude  were  heaped  upon 
him  by  the  beneficiaries  and  their  friends.' 

"  He  urged  upon  the  various  missionary  societies  the  desirable- 
ness of  employing  medical  missionaries  as  pioneers  in  their 
Christian  work,  and  several  papers  which  he  wrote  for  this  pur- 
pose had  considerable  influence  in  directing  attention  to  the 
subject.  With  Dr.  Colledge  also  originated  the  idea  of  the 
Medical  Missionary  Society  of  China,  and  he  served  as  its  Presi- 
dent for  forty  years. 

"  {3)  While  the  humane  labors  of  these  physicians  were  not 
performed  in  the  capacity  of  medical  missionaries,  yet  it  was  of 


26 

the  same  nature  and  equally  as  valuable,  and  beautifully  illustrates 
the  humane  aspect  of  medical  missionary  work. 

"  We  now  come  to  the  first  medical  missionary  work  proper 
done  under  a  missionary  board.  The  name  of  Dr.  Peter  Parker 
as  the  first  medical  missionary  to  China  is  well  known  in  both 
eastern  and  western  hemispheres  and  in  three  continents. 

"Beginning  his  work  under  the  American  Board  in  1835  in 
Canton,  he  soon  started  lines  of  influence  that  resulted  in  phys- 
ical blessing  to  at  least  53,000  patients  by  his  own  hands,  and  it 
is  probably  safe  to  say  millions  more  by  the  hands  of  others.  For 
it  was  through  his  influence,  in  connection  with  Drs.  Colledge  and 
Bridgman,  that  the  Medical  Missionary  Society  of  China  was 
organized  (February  21,  1838),  which  has  already  resulted  in 
the  treatment  of  more  than  a  million  patients.  And  as  the  treat- 
ment of  one  patient  often  means  a  blessing  to  one  or  two  others 
and  sometimes  to  a  whole  family,  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
the  million  patients  treated  does  not  represent  more  than  half  of 
those  who  have  been  blessed.  But  in  addition  to  this  Dr.  Parker 
was  the  means  of  bringing  into  existence  the  Edinburgh  Medical 
Missionary  Society  (in  1841),  whose  influence  in  Great  Britain, 
India,  China,  Japan,  Turkey,  Persia,  Africa,  etc.,  has  ever  been 
widening  till  now  no  adequate  estimate  can  be  made  either  of  the 
number  treated  or  the  extent  of  its  blessing. 

"  (4)  Dr.  William  Lockhart,  of  the  London  Mission,  from  1839 
to  1864  also  shed  a  wide  influence  for  good  all  up  and  down  the 
China  coast  from  Macao  to  Peking.  Tens  of  thousands  were 
blessed  by  his  efforts,  and  he  opened  the  way  for  other  medical 
missionaries  and  ministers  to  prosecute  their  work  with  greater 
facility  and  success  ;  and  his  influence  at  home  these  many  years 
has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  successful  extension  of  the 
noble   influences  of  the  Edinburgh  Medical  Missionary  Society. 

"  (5)  Dr.  Benjamin  Hobson,  of  the  London  Mission,  who 
arrived  in  Macao  the  same  year  (1839)  as  Dr.  Lockhart,  did  a 
similarly  valuable  work  in  Macao,  Canton,  Hong  Kong,  and 
Shanghai. 

"  He  was  the  first  to  begin  the  preparation  of  Western  medical 
works  in  Chinese,  by  which  he  has  exerted  an  enlightening 
influence  of  wide  extent  both  in  China  and  Japan. 

"  His  works  on  Surgery,  Practice  of  Medicine,  Midwifery,  and 
Natural  Philosophy  are  said  by  one  to  be  of  '  incalculable  benefit 
to  the  Chinese  and  worth  the  labor  of  a  lifetime.' 


27 

"  (6)  The  humane  value  alone  of  Dr.  J.  G.  Kerr's  work  in 
Canton,  from  1854  to  the  present,  in  connection  with  the  Presby- 
terian Mission,  has  nowhere  ever  been  equaled,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Dr.  Parker's  indirect  influence  in  helping  to  start  the 
Medical  Missionary  Society  of  Canton  and  the  Edinburgh  Med- 
ical Missionary  Society. 

"  Dr.  Kerr's  work  covers  a  period  of  thirty-eight  years. 

"  By  himself  and  under  his  supervision  some  700,000  patients 
have  been  treated,  and  about  38,000  operations  performed. 
Among  these  operations  some  1,300  were  for  calculi,  the  value 
of  which  needs  only  to  be  known  in  order  to  be  appreciated. 

"  But  in  addition  to  this  nearly  all  the  textbooks,  except  the 
Anatomy,  that  have  been  used  in  teaching  medical  students  were 
prepared  by  his  unceasing  energy  and  perseverance. 

"  (7)  The  names  of  Drs.  McGowan,  Gauld,  Dudgeon,  and 
Osgood  also  stand  out  in  bold  relief  among  the  order  of  medical 
missionaries  in  China,  and  their  humane  influence  alone  can 
never  be  properly  estimated ;  but  they  will  be  remembered  by 
their  beneficiaries  while  life  lasts,  and  the  effects  of  their  work 
with  those  who  have  labored  before  them  will  continue  on  into 
the  next  century. 

"  Dangers  (under  Humane  Value)  :  — 

"  (i)  That  the  press  of  secular  duties  will  cause  the  neglect  of 
the  religious  part  of  the  work;  (2)  that  the  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities for  surgical  work  may  create  an  ambition  to  develop  a 
professional  reputation  at  the  expense  of  the  society  supporting 
him ;  (3)  that  the  natives  may  come  to  regard  the  medical  work 
as  a  vital  part  of  Christianity. 

"  2.  Educational  Value  :  The  earliest  Chinese  medical  works 
were  wTitten  more  than  4,000  years  ago,  and  the  latest  date  back 
at  least  150  years  ago.  This  musty  literature  contains  no  accurate 
theory  or  science  of  medicine,  and  hence  is  of  no  practical  value 
to  the  medical  student. 

"  Through  empiricism,  however,  some  have  learned  the  symp- 
toms and  cause  of  certain  diseases  and  the  value  of  certain  medi- 
cines for  their  treatment,  but  the  theory  of  disease  is  so  erroneous 
and  the  treatment  of  diseases  so  involved  in  superstition  that 
grave  sicknesses  are  usually  aggravated  by  the  native  physician. 

"  Surgery,  moreover,  is  not  yet  in  its  infancy. 

"The  need  therefore  of  medical  textbooks,  medical  instruc- 
tion, and  medical  literature  is  only  too  apparent. 


28 

"  A  good  beginning  has  already  been  made  in  the  preparation 
of  medical  textbooks.  This  work,  undertaken  first  by  Dr. 
Hobson,  has  been  ably  and  somewhat  extensively  supplemented 
by  Dr.  Kerr. 

"  Drs.  Dudgeon,  Osgood,  Dowthwaite,  Porter,  Hunter,  and  a 
few  others  have  also  made  valuable  contributions. 

"There  have  already  been  prepared  in  Chinese,  works  on 
anatomy,  physiology,  chemistry,  materia  medica,  pharmacy, 
theory  and  practice,  surgery,  hygiene,  and  some  special  works 
such  as  on  the  eye,  skin,  syphilis,  bandaging,  and  diseases  of 
women,  and  a  medical  nomenclature  to  correspond.  But  works 
on  obstetrics,  diagnosis,  histology,  medical  electricity,  operative 
surgery,  and  medical  microscopy  ought  to  be  prepared  soon ;  and 
an  Illustrated  Monthly  Medical  Journal  is  greatly  needed  for  -the 
benefit,  first  of  those  who  have  already  been  trained  in  Western 
medicine,  and  also  for  the  many  native  doctors  who  would  be 
greatly  benefited  by  it.  Various  other  brochures  and  larger 
works  will  also  soon  be  in  demand,  such  as  History  of  Medicine, 
Place  of  Medicine  among  the  Professions,  Insanity,  Dentistry, 
Dissecting,  Nursing,  Mental  Physiology,  Lady  Physicians,  etc. ; 
and  all  such  work  will  of  necessity  devolve  upon  the  medical 
missionary. 

"  The  training  of  medical  students  began  of  necessity  with  the 
beginning  of  medical  work  in  China,  and  several  hundred  have 
already  received  sufficient  medical  training  to  make  them  of 
service  in  connection  with  hospital  and  dispensary  work,  and 
many  have  already  gone  out  to  do  good  work  among  their  people. 

"  As  it  is  the  rule  with  medical  missionaries  to  train  only  Chris- 
tians, the  majority  of  those  who  have  gop.e  out  have  been  of  this 
character  ;  and  some  of  them  have  exerted  a  marked  Christian 
influence,  while  the  rest  perhaps  have  averaged  as  well  as  a  like 
company  of  Christian  physicians  in  a  Christian  land. 

"  The  more  distinctive  Christian  character  of  trained  medical 
students  has  been  more  apparent  in  later  years  owing  to  the 
spread  of  Christianity,  which  affords  better  material  to  select 
students  from. 

"  The  greatest  need  of  China,  next  to  Christianity,  is  300,000 
conscientious  native  Christian  physicians  to  meet  the  present 
demands  for  relieving  the  untold  and  incomputable  sufferings  of 
the  people.  If  the  1 75  or  more  dispensaries  and  hospitals  in 
China  should  annually  turn  out  100  trained  men  and  women,  it 


29 

would  be  a  large  average  ;  but  even  at  this  rate  how  long  would 
it  be  before  China  could  thus  have  one  physician  to  each  i,ooo 
inhabitants?  The  condition  of  things  thus  shown  clearly  demon- 
strates that  the  educational  and  literary  work  for  medical  mission- 
aries is  only  equaled  by  the  religious  work  confronting  the  clerical 
missionaries. 

"  3.  Religious  value.  This  cannot  be  measured  by  merely 
counting  the  number  of  Christians  medical  work  has  produced, 
though  these  can  be  counted  by  hundreds  ;  and  if  the  proportion 
has  been  at  all  constant  throughout  China,  they  can  be  counted 
by  thousands.  Nearly  all  of  the  purely  humane  work,  if  done 
in  a  Christian  land,  would  be  regarded  as  benevolent  or  philan- 
thropic work.  Being  done  in  the  way  it  is  and  in  connection 
with  Christian  missions,  it  is  really  under  the  circumstances 
indirect  religious  work. 

"  But  in  addition  to  what  has  already  been  enumerated,  medi- 
cal missionary  work  prepares  the  way  for  extending  the  gospel. 
It  has  kept  and  is  keeping  open  many  chapels  that  would  other- 
wise have  to  be  closed.  It  has  brought  hundreds  of  thousands 
within  the  reach  of  the  gospel  that  otherwise,  in  all  probability, 
would  never  have  heard  it.  It  helps  thousands  to  live  a  better 
life  though  they  may  not  openly  profess  Christ. 

"  Medical  missionary  work  in  certain  places  has  been  consid- 
ered by  some  more  successful  than  direct  clerical  work.  By 
many  it  is  put  upon  the  same  plane  as  clerical  work,  and  by  the 
vast  majority  of  missionaries  in  China  it  is  regarded  as  only 
second  to  the  direct  work  of  preaching  the  gospel. 

"  4.  The  opportunity  and  need  of  medical  missionary  work. 
These  extend  throughout  the  empire  —  from  Manchuria  on  the 
north  to  the  island  of  Hainan  on  the  south,  and  from  the  island 
of  Formosa  on  the  east  to  Thibet  on  the  west.  Or,  if  one  pre- 
fers, from  Peking  to  Canton,  and  from  Shanghai  to  Lan-Chao 
(Kan  Sun)   province  —  see  your  cloth  map  of  China. 

"  5.  Incidents  of  the  value  of  medical  missions. 

"  {a)   Individual  missions. 

"  (i)  The  medical  missionary  work  at  Swatow  (English  Presby- 
terian) does  the  largest  hospital  practice  in  China,  and  has,  with- 
out doubt,  produced  the  greatest  number  of  converts  in  the  same 
length  of  time.  The  Canton  Hospital  (American  Presbyterian) 
comes  next. 

"  (2)  After  these  two  it  would  be  difificult  to  determine  which 


30 

have  been  the  more  successful,  but  among  the  first  should  be 
named  our  own  Foochow  work  (equaling  about  one  seventh  of 
the  Foochow  membership),  and  the  Shao-wu  work  (equaling 
about  one  fifth  of  the  Shao-wu  membership)  ;  also,  the  London 
Mission  work  at  Hankow,  Tientsin,  and  Peking  ;  the  United  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Scotland  work  at  New-Chwang,  Manchuria  ; 
the  China  Inland  work  at  Che-Foo ;  the  Baptist  Missionary  Union 
work  at  Ningpo  ;  the  English  Presbyterian  work  at  Amoy ;  the 
Canadian  Presbyterian  work  at  Tamsui,  Formosa  ;  and  the  work 
of  our  Dr.  Porter  at  Pang-chuang  and  elsewhere. 

"  (3)  There  are  a  number  of  more  recent  medical  works  that  I 
have  not  sufficient  knowledge  of  to  give  their  relative  success, 
but  quite  a  number  report  two,  three,  four,  five,  and  ten  conver- 
sions in  a  single  year ;  and  some  of  them  include  a  number  of 
inquirers  besides.  So  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  majority  of 
the  hospitals  in  China  are  blessed  with  more  or  less  conversions 
every  year  in  addition  to  all  their  other  worth. 

"  (^)   Particular  instances. 

"  During  1883  in  the  Swatow  Hospital  over  140  gave  in  their 
names,  men  and  women,  as  candidates  for  church  fellowship. 

"In  1878  a  leper  at  the  Swatow  Hospital  became  interested  in 
the  truth,  and  four  years  after  it  was  found  that  he  had  influenced 
about  thirty  of  his  village  friends  to  give  up  their  idols  and  wor- 
ship God.  From  these  five  were  selected  and  received  to  the 
church  at  the  first  visit  of  the  missionaries. 

"  At  the  Amoy  Hospital  an  interesting  case  is  reported  of  a 
man  who,  seventeen  years  before,  came  for  treatment.  On  his 
return  home  he  reported  to  his  friends  the  kind  treatment  he  had 
received  and  the  gospel  of  God's  love  which  he  had  heard.  In 
consequence  of  this  a  few  believed,  and  as  the  number  increased 
persecution  arose  and  they  had  to  leave  the  village.  They 
begged  for  a  teacher  and  one  was  sent  who  gathered  a  congrega- 
tion of  about  100. 

"  As  many  came  from  a  distance  a  new  community  had  to  be 
formed  farther  inland.  The  work  went  on  till  seven  such  congre- 
gations were  gathered,  numbering  from  thirty  to  upwards  of  100, 
all  the  outcome  of  the  truth  sown  in  one  patient's  heart  while  in 
the  hospital.  This  is  probably  the  most  remarkable  instance  that 
has  ever  occurred  in  China. 

"  The  case  of  Dr.  Chin  at  Yang-chin-ken  in  the  Shao-wu  field  is 
familiar  to  you  through  our  Missionary  Herald. 


31 

"  An  interesting  case  is  reported  from  the  London  Mission 
Hospital  at  Hankow.  A  farmer  brought  to  the  hospital  his  two 
daughters,  aged  thirteen  and  sixteen  years,  both  totally  blind  from 
double  cataract.  They  were  operated  upon  and  returned  home 
with  sight  restored.  While  in  the  hospital  they  received  daily 
Christian  instruction,  and  at  length  desired  to  confess  Christ. 
After  a  few  weeks'  probation  and  giving  evidence  of  a  change  of 
heart  they  were  baptized.  Three  months  after  they  returned  with 
several  of  their  sick  neighbors  and  their  mother,  who  had  been 
blind  over  twenty  years  and  was  now  forty  years  old.  She  said 
she  did  not  expect  to  be  healed  of  her  blindness,  but  she  came 
to  receive  Christian  instruction.  Her  eyes  were  operated  upon 
and  her  sight  restored.  While  in  the  hospital  both  she  and  her 
husband  were  brought  to  Christ.  They  were  baptized  the  Sunday 
before  they  left,  and  so  all  returned  home  a  happy  Christian 
family,  father,  mother,  and  two  daughters. 

"  Quite  a  number  of  similarly  interesting  instances  have 
occurred  in  connection  with  medical  work  in  China. 

"  (c)   Personal  testimony. 

'•  The  Foochow  medical  work  has  exerted  a  very  wide  influence 
for  good  and  has  brought  many  to  Christ,  not  only  in  our  own 
mission,  but  we  have  had  testimony  from  several  members  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Mission  and  Church  Mission  of  converts 
in  their  fields  who  first  learned  about  the  truth  in  our  hospital. 

"  Dr.  Lockhart's  testimony  fifty-five  years  ago  was  :  '  I  say  it 
with  confidence,  that  medical  missions  in  China  have  been  success- 
ful in  winning  an  entrance  for  the  gospel  to  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  the  people,  which  no  other  agency  could  have  so  well 
effected.'  About  the  same  time  Dr.  Wilson,  Inspector  of  Naval 
Hospitals,  in  his  Medical  Notes  on  China  says  :  '  Among  the  most 
promising  means  now  employed  for  reforming  or  rather  revolu- 
tionizing the  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  condition  of  the  Chi- 
nese, we  would  rank  the  medical  missions.  They  have  a  more 
potent  means  than  those  who  address  themselves  to  the  under- 
standing to  touch  the  heart  and  undermine  their  antiquated 
structures,  and  rear  in  their  stead  institutions  of  light  and 
liberty ;  substituting  for  the  worship  of  idols  adoration  of  the 
true  God.' 

"  Rev.  Griffith  John,  a  veteran  of  the  London  Mission,  Han- 
kow, says  :  '  Our  hospital  at  Hankow  is  a  thoroughly  Christian 
institution.     I  never  enter  the  wards  without  feehng  that  it  is  a 


32 

great  spiritual  power,  destined  to  accomplish  a  mighty  work  for 
God  in  the  centre  of  China.' 

"  Mr.  John  Lowe,  late  Secretary  of  the  Edinburgh  Medical 
Missionary  Society,  in  his  work  on  Medical  Missions  well  says  : 
'  A  good-sized  volume  might  be  filled  with  interesting  records  of 
the  triumphs  of  medical  missionary  work  in  China,  India,  Japan, 
Siam,  Burma,  Madagascar,  Africa,  Persia,  Central  Turkey,  Syria, 
and  in  many  parts  of  the  corrtinents  of  America  and  Europe.'  " 

XI. 

Dr.  H.  N.  Kinnear,  of  the  Foochow  Mission,  presents  the  follow- 
ing views  :  — 

"  I  take  it  that  the  medical  missionaries  of  the  American  Board 
of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  in  most  cases  at  least, 
have  a  twofold  work,  that  of  being  physicians  to  the  missionaries 
where  they  are  stationed  and  that  of  doing  direct  medical  mis- 
sionary work  among  the  natives.  The  relative  amount  of  care 
and  time  required  by  these  two  branches  of  work  must  vary  in 
each  place,  depending  upon  the  number  of  missionaries,  the 
healthfulness  of  the  place,  the  degree  of  development  of  the  medi- 
cal missionary  work,  and  several  less  important  circumstances. 
In  general  I  incline  to  think  that  the  importance  of  the  first  part 
of  the  work  is  rather  underestimated  as  a  rule.  In  the  treaty  ports 
where  there  are  other  foreign  physicians  it  is  easy  for  the  mis- 
sionaries to  obtain  medical  advice,  but  in  many  places,  as  in 
Foochow,  for  instance,  the  foreign  physician  charges  for  treating 
families  by  the  year,  preferably,  the  charge  here  being  $ioo  a 
family  and  the  same  for  each  single  person ;  and  if  not  hired  by 
the  year,  his  fee  for  each  call  is  ^5.  At  this  rate  it  would  have 
cost  the  mission  here  $600  or  ^700  for  medical  attendance  during 
this  year,  if  there  were  no  mission  physician  here.  I  need 
scarcely  ask  you  to  look  over  the  history  of  those  mission  stations 
that  have  not  been  supplied  with  physicians.  It  may  be  pre- 
sumed that  they  have  been  manned  with  consecrated  men  who 
would  stay  at  their  post  as  long  as  it  seemed  possible,  and  yet 
how  much  time  has  been  lost  in  many  of  them  by  trips  to  the 
ports  or  other  places  where  medical  advice  could  be  obtained  ! 
It  would  be  hard  for  a  person  in  America  to  imagine  all  of  the 
nerve-strain  that  must  be  endured  by  some  devoted  people  who 
have  gone  to  the  interior  of  China  without  being  accompanied  by 
physicians.     The  knowledge  that  they  are  more  exposed  to  con- 


33 

tagion  and  infection  than  at  home  ;  that  if  wife  or  child  is  taken 
ill,  medical  help  cannot  be  obtained  without  a  long  journey,  when 
it  may  be  too  late  to  save  life  ;  that  if  a  member  of  the  family 
were  to  die,  there  would  always  remain  the  feeling  that  it  might 
have  been  different  if  medical  aid  could  have  been  summoned, 
and  that  perhaps  all  was  not  done  that  might  have  been  done ;  — 
all  of  these  reflections  must  sometimes  be  brought  home  to  the 
thoughtful  man,  and  must  bring  a  kind  of  care,  notwithstanding 
the  most  perfect  faith  in  God,  that  detracts  something  from  the 
elasticity  of  a  person's  mind. 

"  Where  there  are  several  stations  and  only  one  man  to  do  the 
medical  work,  he  is  almost  certain  to  be  demanded,  first  in  one 
place,  then  in  another,  for  weeks  at  a  time,  perhaps,  so  that 
anything  like  doing  systematic  missionary  work  must  become 
impossible. 

"This  phase  of  our  work  is  not  by  any  means  without  its 
cares.  Each  one  of  the  workers  of  the  mission  becomes  to  us  as 
a  brother  or  sister,  so  that  we  are  deeply  interested  in  their  physi- 
cal welfare  for  their  own  sakes.  Then  we  can  hardly  fail  to 
remember  how  many  loved  ones  at  home  are  looking  to  us  to 
watch  over  them,  and  we  have  the  best  of  opportunities  to  know 
ho\v  useful  they  are,  and  how  hard  it  would  be  to  find  another  to 
fill  the  place  of  any  one  of  them,  so  that  their  sicknesses  bring  a 
heavier  burden  of  care  than  the  ordinary  patients  of  a  physician 
at  home. 

"  It  is  in  view  of  this  part  of  my  own  work  that  I  have  felt  war- 
ranted in  asking  the  mission  to  estimate  for  help  to  my  work  from 
the  Board.  The  money  that  is  given  by  the  Chinese  officials  and 
the  foreign  community  is  given  for  the  work  for  the  Chinese  and 
should  be  used  for  that  only;  even  then  it  is  insufficient  to 
meet  all  our  needs,  and  is  certainly  insufficient  to  buy  the  many 
finer  preparations  and  more  expensive  medicines  which  are 
needed  in  doing  work  for  the  foreigners,  while  many  appliances 
needed  to  promote  the  comfort  of  a  foreign  patient  during  an 
acute  illness  are  seldom  or  never  needed  in  the  hospital.  To  be 
sure,  many  such  drugs  and  appliances  may  not  be  used  every 
year ;  but  each  missionary  physician  should  be  allowed  a  reason- 
able amount  each  year  to  keep  a  stock  of  the  medicine  and 
nursing  appliances  that  may  be  needed  in  a//y  emergency  by  any 
of  th€  missionaries  under  his  charge. 

^4n  regard  to  the  medical  missionary  work,  I  presume  that  the 


.  34 

testimony  of  all  medical  missionaries  will  be  the  same.  It  is  not 
indispensable  in  opening  up  new  work,  but,  as  is  generally  ad- 
mitted, it  is  the  most  useful  help.  I  suspect  that  a  careful  exam- 
ination would  prove  that  most  cases  of  trouble  with  the  Chinese 
in  newly  opened  stations  have  occurred  where  preaching  and 
teaching  were  begun  abruptly,  without  any  medical  work,  and 
that  the  most  permanent  work  and  the  places  where  there  has 
been  most  perfect  understanding  with  the  Chinese  are  places 
which  were  opened  by  medical  work.  There  are  physicians  in 
China,  probably  some  good  ones,  aside  from  the  medical  mis- 
sionaries ;  but  the  number  of  those  having  really  good  sense  in 
treating  disease  is  probably  small,  and  none  of  them  offers  free 
treatment  to  even  the  most  abjectly  poor.  So  that  while  the 
wealthier  people  do  call  native  doctors,  and  will  so  continue  to  do 
to  some  extent,  the  great  class  of  poorer  people,  whose  conditions 
of  life  render  them  more  liable  to  disease,  and  who  would  or 
could  not  go  to  native  doctors,  are  glad  to  put  themselves  under 
our  care.  In  regard  to  the  opportunities  offered  it  is  hard  for 
me  to  make  temperate  statements.  I  sometimes  compare  my 
work  to  the  evening  meetings  held  at  the  suburb  church  near 
here.  The  church  is  open  nearly  every  evening,  the  singing  calls 
a  crowd,  and  the  gospel  is  preached  with  good  results,  a  few 
coming  more  or  less  regularly  until  they  are  convinced  of  the 
truth  and  accept  it,  while  a  large  amount  of  seed  is  sown,  that 
must  have  an  influence  in  removing  prejudice,  if  it  never  bears 
more  apparent  fruit.  In  the  hospital  we  have  much  the  same 
service  every  morning.  We  call  it  morning  prayers,  but  it  is  as 
much  a  gospel  preaching  service  as  most  of  the  evening  meetings. 
It  comes  at  a  time  of  day  when  the  hearers  are  not  too  tired  to 
listen  attentively  and  quietly ;  we  are  very  seldom  disturbed  by 
having  any  one  leave  the  room  during  the  time  as  is  so  common 
at  the  church.  At  the  church  many  of  the  people  come  in  led 
by  curiosity,  and  feel  under  no  obligations  to  listen  to  what  is 
said,  or  even  to  be  respectful  to  the  speaker.  At  the  hospital  all 
is  reversed.  All  of  the  usual  attendants  come  to  receive  a  favor 
from  the  physician,  and  do  not  care  to  lessen  their  chances  of 
receiving  his  best  care  by  incurring  his  displeasure.  The  larger 
number  of  the  attendants  are  in-patients,  who  do  not  hear  once 
and  then  go  away,  but  hear  the  truth  every  morning,  not  a  dis- 
connected text,  but  the  consecutive  exposition  of  chapters  of  the 
Gospels,  with  direct  personal  appeals  from  all  of  those  from  whom 


35 

they  are  receiving  care.  They  soon  learn  that  a  rehgion  of  which 
such  work  is  the  fruits  cannot  be  altogether  bad ;  that  a  religion 
that  the  foreign  physician  believes  and  that  prompts  him  to  work 
among  them  under  such  disagreeable  conditions,  and  do  for  them 
things  that  their  relatives  are  seldom  willing  to  do,  must  have 
some  reason  in  it.  In  short,  they  hear  the  gospel  more  regu- 
larly, and  in  a  state  of  mind  produced  by  leisure,  by  freshness, 
and  by  the  spirit  of  the  place,  better  calculated  to  produce  deep 
and  lasting  impressions  than  is  usually  the  case  at  the  church. 
As  to  the  results  of  the  work  I  will  refer  you  to  my  reports  :  the 
one  for  the  year  ending  March  31,  being  nearly  ready  to  bind, 
contains  some  items  of  interest  to  you.  The  patients  come  from 
such  widely  separated  fields  that  it  is  impossible  to  gain  any 
adequate  idea  of  the  total  result  of  a  year's  work.  If  it  could  be 
all  gathered  into  one  church,  I  am  sure  it  would  be  encouraging. 
Mr.  Hartwell  recently  sent  two  evangelists  to  a  town  seldom 
visited  by  missionaries.  A  patient  from  the  hospital,  who  became 
a  member  of  the  suburb  church  last  February,  is  the  first  Chris- 
tian there ;  they  found  him  regularly  reading  the  Testament  and 
hymnbook  I  gave  him,  talking  about  the  doctrine,  and  receiving 
warm  welcome  and  ready  listeners  in  the  villagers. 

"  Does  the  work  pay  from  a  humanitarian  point  of  view?  Yes. 
How  well?  It  can  be  estimated  when  the  value  of  a  pair  of  eyes 
is  determined,  when  we  know  what  a  father's  right  arm  is  worth 
to  the  family  depending  upon  it,  when  we  know  what  may  be  the 
result  of  saving  a  life.  All  of  these  things  are  done  here  every 
year,  and  besides  them  hundreds  of  less  notable  things  that 
save  suffering  and  useful  members. 

"These  few  points  will  assure  you  that  I  believe  that  the  medi- 
cal work  is  an  important  part  of  our  work  as  missionaries ;  that 
under  ordinary  conditions  it  presents  opportunities,  to  say  the 
least,  as  favorable  for  the  presentation  of  truth  as  those  presented 
by  any  of  the  other  methods  of  evangelization ;  and  that  consider- 
ing all  things  its  results  are  as  good,  though  not  always  as  appar- 
ent or  as  easily  computed." 


XII. 

Dr.  E.  R.  Wagner,  of  Northern  China,  thus  expresses  his 
view :  — 

"  First,  A  missionary,  whether  clerical  or  medical,  must  be 
ready  and  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  the  lower  classes  in 


36 

society.  I  doubt  if  this  fact  is  made  prominent  enough  at  home 
and  I  fear  that  many  young  missionaries  are  grievously  disap- 
pointed, discouraged,  and  perhaps  have  a  feeling  of  being  wronged, 
because  they  were  not  thoroughly  posted  in  this  line.  It  is  true 
that  some  missionaries  do  have  to  do  with  the  highest  classes,  but 
in  China  at  least  this  is  not, of  very  frequent  occurrence.  I  know 
of  no  better  preparation  for  the  foreign  field  than  that  offered  in 
such  an  institution  as  the  International  Medical  Missionary  Soci- 
ety of  New  York.  If  a  man  does  not  like  the  work  among  the 
poor  of  a  big  city  at  home,  or  cannot  make  a  success  of  such 
work,  he  is  almost  certain  to  make  a  failure  on  the  mission  field. 

"  Second,  He  is  the  best  medical  missionary  who  can  perceive 
and  follow  up  with  the  gospel  the  openings  made  by  his  medical 
skill.  I  fear  there  is  much  lost  to  the  work  by  the  failure  of  the 
medical  missionary  to  do  this,  either  from  want  of  inclination,  or 
ability. 

"  Third,  If  a  medical  missionary  is  unfortunate  enough  to  find 
out  that  he  is  not  a  success  as  an  evangelistic  worker,  he  should 
not  give  up  striving  to  develop  in  this  hne. 

"  Fourth,  It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  his  work  as  a  doctor 
should  be  first-class.  Imagine  a  second  or  third  rate  missionary 
doctor  making  a  success  at  this  time  in  Japan  !  To  be  sure  China 
is  not  Japan,  but  it  is  changing  year  by  year  in  its  attitude  toward 
foreign  medicine. 

"Fifth,  The  training  of  native  medical  assistants  is  an  impor- 
tant educating  factor.  Just  as  the  clerical  missionary  finds  that 
the  native  helper  can  reach  the  people  much  better  than  he  can, 
so  the  missionary  physician  finds  that  a  well-trained  medical  assist- 
ant can  do  much  more  than  he  can  in  disarming  prejudice  and 
making  the  people  realize  that  the  foreigner  is  among  them  to  do 
good  and  not  to  deceive  or  harm  them.  If  the  foreigner  at  any 
time  should  have  to  leave  his  work,  anything  done  in  the  line  of 
supplanting  native  quackery  with  foreign  medicine  is  a  real  gain 
in  the  cause  of  humanity  and  aids  in  opening  the  country  to  for- 
eign influences. 

"  Perils  on  the  secular  line  are  common  to  the  clerical  and 
medical  missionary.  The  astonishing  indifference  of  the  Chinese 
to  any  form  of  religious  instruction  from  foreign  sources,  and  the 
disgust  which  their  cupidity  and  untrustworthiness  excite  in  the 
foreigner,  strongly  incline  the  latter  to  spend  more  of  his  time  in  a 
line  more  congenial  to  his  tastes  than  that  of  forcing  an  unwelcome 


37 

truth  on  unwilling  hearers.  The  medical  missionary  has  besides 
this  the  strong  temptation  to  allow  all  of  his  time  and  energy  to 
be  taken  up  with  purely  medical  work." 

XIII. 

Dr,  H.  D.  Porter,  of  North  China,  sums  up  his  views  as 
follows  :  — 

"  I.  The  medical  work  is  the  divinely  appointed  substitute  for 
miracles. 

"There  is  a  sense  of  course  in  which  we  may  use  the  word 
miracle  with  reference  to  all  missionary  work.  The  changes 
which  have  come  through  the  gospel  in  the  course  of  its  wide 
proclamation  are  sometimes  considered  miraculous.  As  the  ex- 
ponent of  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  they  are  indeed  marvelous. 
But  these  changes  are  the  natural  and  determined  results  of  the 
unfolding  of  God's  grace  to  men.  I  do  not  consider  it  legitimate 
to  call  them  miraculous.  On  the  other  hand  the  medical  appeal 
is  to  the  same  pitiful  need  of  men.  It  is  so  direct  and  immediate 
that  the  dullest  can  appreciate  and  rejoice  in  it.  The  appeal  is 
personal  and  carries  with  it,  as  did  the  early  miracles,  its  own 
demonstration  which  neither  the  recipients  of  the  aid  nor  their 
friends  desire  to  gainsay,  if  they  are  able  to. 

"(i)  The  medical  work  is  a  fitting  substitute  for  miracle  in 
the  range  of  its  influence.  *  The  multitudes '  are  aroused  by  it. 
In  our  own  station  during  the  ten  years  or  twelve  since  medical 
work  has  been  carried  on  we  have  reached  directly  and  personally 
100,000  persons.  The  direct  influence  is  beyond  our  ability  to 
esfimate.  In  China  alone  there  have  been  reached  annually  now 
for  many  years  a  multitude  approaching  half  a  million  each  year. 

"The  first  recorded  miracle  of  the  Saviour,  which  was  a  work 
of  healing,  was  wrought  upon  the  son  of  a  nobleman.  The  first 
raising  of  the  dead  was  the  ruler's  daughter.  '  And  the  fame 
thereof  went  abroad  into  all  the  land.'  The  most  immovable 
class  was  thus  affected  as  well  as  the  '  multitude  '  who  always 
received  and  heard  gladly.  The  work  of  the  ^nedical  missionary 
has  had  a  like  fame  sudden  and  widespread.  At  Tientsin,  within 
a  stone's  throw  from  our  own  mission  compound,  three  great  hos- 
pitals are  carrying  on  their  beneficent  work.  The  first  was  estab- 
hshed  in  1880,  for  men,  in  the  grounds  of  the  London  Mission,  a 
splendid  building  upon  the  busy  thoroughfare  bearing  a  constant 
testimony  to  the  messages  of  the  gospel.     The  second  is  upon  the 


38 

other  side  of  the  same  street  a  few  hundred  yards  away,  estab- 
lished for  women  and  children.  The  third  is  nearly  opposite 
the  original  one,  with  its  noble  front  upon  the  same  street. 
Close  beside  these  a  fourth  is  in  quiet  operation,  and  adjoining 
the  third  one  mentioned  there  are  now  being  erected  a  vast  series 
of  buildings  for  the  purpose^  of  equipping  the  Chinese  army  and 
navy  with  suitably  educated  and  furnished  medical  men.  This 
remarkable  series  of  benevolences  has  sprung  from  the  partial 
healing  by  missionary  physicians,  one  a  man  and  the  other  a 
woman,  of  the  wife  of  a  nobleman.  A  Christian  native  physician 
has  been  for  many  months  the  chief  reliance  of  the  imperial 
court  at  Peking  when  serious  and  alarming  disease  has  attacked 
the  members  of  the  imperial  family. 

"  (2)  The  medical  work  is  the  fitting  substitute  for  miracle  in 
the  self-conscious  abihty  of  the  physician  to  give  the  needed 
relief.  I  once  attended  with  another  member  of  the  profession 
an  old  gentleman  who  had  accumulated  very  large  wealth  and  was 
duly  respected  for  his  great  business  capacity  and  general  ability. 
No  man  in  this  generation  has  been  more  respected  in  that  com- 
munity than  he.  He  had  a  hopeless  disease.  He  had  called  in 
no  less  than  100  native  doctors.  A  single  examination  showed 
the  source  of  the  trouble.  Surgical  relief  could  give  a  temporary 
respite  from  pain  and  death.  The  confidence  with  which  the 
advice  was  given  was  marvelous  to  those  whose  dependence  had 
always  been  conjecture  in  place  of  clear  and  exact  knowledge. 

"(3)  The  medical  work  is  the  substitute  for  miracle  in  the 
marvelous  relief  or  cure  which  is  effected  through  either  surgical 
or  medical  skill.  Our  native  helpers,  after  seeing  the  many  inter- 
esting cases  which  come  to  the  hospital  go  away  with  very  great 
improvement,  say  in  a  humorous  way :  '  The  deaf  hear,  the  lame 
walk,  the  blind  see.'  They  cannot  say,  '  The  lepers  are  cleansed, 
and  the  dead  are  raised.'  But  every  other  form  of  malady  and 
ill  may  be  successfully  reached.  Nothing  appeals  more  directly 
to  sense  of  wonder  and  grateful  acknowledgment  of  ability  than 
the  cure  of  the  apparently  hopelessly  blind.  We  have  a  good 
woman  who  acts  as  the  very  efificient  matron  of  our  hospital.  It 
is  now  some  four  years  since  she  came  some  hundred  miles  or 
more,  a  poor  blind  beggar  led  by  a  little  son.  She  was  in  good 
estate  as  an  innkeeper  until  she  became  blind  from  cataract. 
Hearing  of  the  work  and  dragging  herself  painfully  along  till  she 
reached  us,  she  sought  for  the  help  the  fame  of  which  had  reached 


39 

her.  The  eyes  were  duly  operated  on.  One  was  gone  too  far  for 
help ;  but  the  other  was  easily  cured  by  the  operation  and  care. 
The  marvelous  result  was  enough  to  give  an  increasing  fame  to 
the  hospital  work  in  the  region  she  came  from.  The  cases  where 
both  eyes  are  thus  enlightened  and  healed  are  very  numerous  now. 
The  splendid  courage  of  the  man  who  in  absolute  confidence 
begotten  of  superior  knowledge  cuts  off  a  man's  leg  to  save  his 
life,  and  who  returns  the  patient  to  his  friends  healed  and  strong, 
makes  a  tremendous  impression  upon  an  ignorant  and  suspicious 
people.  When  such  serene  confidence  is  repeated  unceasingly 
through  a  series  of  years  and  through  a  multitude  of  appalling 
cases  of  disease  the  appeal  is  closely  allied  to  that  appeal  which 
the  Saviour  made  in  his  marvelous  works  of  touching  and  healing. 
The  Chinese  are  forward  in  admitting  the  skill  and  power  of 
Western  medicine.  They  say  as  their  first  thought:  'This  is  the 
touch  of  the  hand  of  a  spirit  or  fairy.'  It  was  this  which  made 
the  work  of  Dr.  Peter  Parker  so  distinguished  at  Canton.  It' was 
this  which  left  the  memory  of  Dr.  Hobson  and  Dr.  Lockhart  so 
green  in  the  thoughts  of  men  at  Shanghai  and  Ningpo  half  a 
century  ago.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  name  of  Dr.  Kerr  so 
revered  at  the  south,  and  the  name  of  Mackenzie  as  dear  to  the 
Chinese  as  that  of  the  still  more  famous  Gordon.  It  is  this  which 
has  raised  the  rank  of  women  workers  to  a  level  with  that  of  their 
brethren,  in  the  wide  repute  of  Dr.  Howard  King  and  Dr.  Reif 
Snyder.  The  Chinese  are  horrified  at  the  simple  thought  of  any 
operation  which  opens  the  abdomen  for  the  sake  of  physical 
relief.  But  they  are  familiar  now  with  many  cases  of  both  men 
and  women  healed  of  deadly  disease  for  whom  there  was  no  other 
resource. 

"  The  most  interesting  case  I  have  had  in  my  own  practice  was 
that  of  a  large  tumor  of  the  superior  maxilla.  The  flesh  of  the 
cheek  was  divided,  the  bone  with  the  protuberant  mass  was 
removed,  the  woman  retured  to  her  home  with  scarce  a  scar  upon 
her  face,  a  living  witness  to  the  spiritlike  power  of  the  foreign 
doctor.  In  Western  lands  these  matters  attract  no  attention 
because  of  their  commonness.  But  in  heathen  lands  wherever 
the  skilful  touch  of  the  medical  man  goes,  the  mystery  and  the 
marvel  of  it  make  an  impression  whose  influence  even  we  are 
unable  to  measure. 

"  II.  The  medical  work  is  a  signal  illustration  of  the  beneficent 
work  of  the  gospel.     The  missionary  physician  fulfils  in  a  very 


real  sense  the  words  of  the  prophet  which  the  Saviour  fulfilled  : 
'  Himself  took  our  infirmities  and  bare  our  sicknesses.'  Happily 
the  gospel  message  is  not  merely  a  message  of  words,  it  is  a  mes- 
sage of  deeds  as  well.  The  natives  in  China  understand  very 
well  that  their  own  physicians  never  do  anything  but  in  a  per- 
functory way.  Whatever  is  done  is  done  for  the  meagre  little  sum 
of  money  or  the  small  gift  that  accompanies  every  prescription  or 
word  of  advice.  They  understand  equally  well  that  the  benevo- 
lent work  which  is  done  for  them  by  the  man  from  over  the  sea  is 
a  matter  of  pure  benevolence.  '  Where  did  you  ever  see  the  like 
of  this  ? '  '  What  possible  inducement  can  there  be  for  his 
doing  this  ? '  '  Can  you  find  another  one  in  all  this  land  willing 
to  do  such  things  for  men?'  'Nothing  seems  to  disgust  him.' 
*  What  the  majority  of  men  would  never  think  of  touching  even 
with  a  long  bamboo  rod  this  man  touches  and  cleanses.'  These 
are  some  of  the  sentences  which  can  be  heard  in  every  hospital 
or  dispensary.  They  are  the  humble  tribute  of  the  people  assisted 
to  the  good  works  of  the  gospel.  The  missionary  physician  comes 
nearer  touching  the  fountain  of  sympathy  and  influence  than  any 
other.  When  one  considers  his  opportunity  and  privilege,  accu- 
mulating as  the  years  of  experience  go  on,  he  may  well  be  filled 
with  unceasing  gratitude  for  the  influence  that  is  allotted  to  him  in 
and  through  his  work. 

"HI.  The  medical  work  has  a  direct  power  in  evangelistic 
work.  The  other  day  I  was  speaking  with  our  helpers  of  the 
terrible  hostility  in  Central  and  South  China  to  the  gospel.  Our 
experience  in  Shantung  has  been  strangely  exempt  from  peril  or 
anxiety.  There  are  bitter  feelings  expressed,  no  doubt ;  but  the 
prevailing  feeling  toward  us  in  a  wide  region  is  that  of  kindly 
interest.  Through  these,  now  many,  years  people  have  been  get- 
ting accustomed  to  our  presence  and  work.  The  gospel  has  been 
illustrated,  and  the  people  everywhere  speak  well  of  us.  In  fact 
they  speak  better  of  the  foreigners  than  they  do  of  the  natives. 
They  have  learned  to  have  a  manifest  regard  for  the  high  tone  of 
moral  fife,  the  utter  absence  of  enmity  and  quarreling,  which  is 
the  special  characteristic  of  the  native  life.  This  widespread 
good  name  has  come  very  largely  through  the  infiltration  of  the 
steadily  pursued  medical  work.  As  to  the  evangelistic  portion  of 
the  medical  work  it  is  almost  impossible  to  separate  it  from  the 
other  work.  That  is,  from  the  work  of  the  preaching  missionary. 
The  two  are  integral  parts  of  a  common  whole  and  cannot  be 


41 

separated.  Still  it  may  be  said  that  the  medical  man  has  the  first 
access  to  the  people.  It  often  happens  that  the  medical  man  has 
a  less  perfect  knowledge  of  the  native  speech  and  so  is  not  in  the 
nearest  relation  to  the  people  who  come  for  help.  If  this  be  the 
case,  he  is  restricted  in  his  best  effort  in  touching  the  deeper 
thought  of  the  people.  Happily,  here  we  have  not  felt  such 
restriction  and  the  medical  work  has  gone  hand  in  hand  with  all 
the  evangelical  work.  I  think  this  may  be  said  of  the  field  in 
China  generally.  The  hospital  work  at  Swatow,  at  Han-Kow,  at 
Hang-Chow,  at  Tientsin,  and  I  may  say  here  in  Shantung,  has  been 
signahzed  by  its  earnest  effort  in  the  Hne  of  teaching  the  gospel 
message  to  those  who  have  been  in  attendance.  One  need  not  go 
into  special  cases  beyond  the  very  few.  There  was  a  man  here  two 
years  since,  a  rough,  crude  man  with  a  wild  and  boisterous  speech. 
He  was  a  runner  at  the  Yamen  in  his  region  and  full  of  all  deceit 
and  iniquity.  He  was  here  many  months.  He  was  filled  up  with 
the  gospel.  He  learned  to  read  in  a  short  time  although  over 
thirty  years  of  age.  He  became  a  very  enthusiastic  believer. 
I  hope  he  remains  so,  although  he  has  not  been  with  us  for  some 
time.  There  is  a  man  here  now  who  has  been  here  but  two 
months.  He  could  read  a  little.  He  spends  all  his  time  in  read- 
ing the  Gospels.  He  has  been  received  on  probation.  I  believe 
he  is  a  true  seeker  after  the  Light  of  Life.  The  record  of  each 
year's  work  is  a  record  of  similar  cases.  From  our  hospital  court 
more  books  are  sold  than  anywhere  else.  They  are  sold  to  per- 
sons who  have  reason  to  be  interested  and  awakened  by  what 
they  read.  We  have  faith  to  believe  that  a  signal  part  of  the 
medical  work  is  the  implanting  of  a  new  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  scores  and  hundreds  who 
visit  us.  And  what  we  see  is  no  doubt  the  continuous  story  of 
the  most  of  the  centres  of  medical  work  in  the  East." 

XIV. 

Dr.  A.  P.  Peck,  of  North  China,  presents  the  following 
statement :  — 

"  We  medical  missionaries  are  placed  in  rather  a  delicate  posi- 
tion, as  we  of  course  would  not  wish  to  niagnify  our  office  above 
its  true  relation  to  the  purely  evangelistic  department.  Fortu- 
nately I  can  escape  the  embarrassment  somewhat  for  myself  by 
referring  to  some  facts  in  connection  with  the  mission  during  the 
last  decade,  and  to  the  expressed  opinions  of  some  of  my  colleagues 


42 

as  to  the  value  of  the  medical  work  as  an  aid  in  reaching  the  masses. 
My  own  knowledge  of  the  medical  history  of  the  North  China  Mis- 
sion begins  with  the  year  i8So,  when  an  appeal  written  by  the 
Rev.  Isaac  Pierson  and  printed  in  the  Herald  was  sufficient  to 
draw  me  from  an  established  practice  in  America ;  for  four  years 
I  was  associated  with  him  at  the  station  of  Pao-ting-fu,  where  his 
faithful  and  patient  work  laid  the'  foundation  for  the  flourishing 
station  we  have  there  now.  There  I  opened  our  first  hospital, 
being  the  pioneer  in  the  work  in  this  mission. 

"  My  colleague,  Dr.  H.  D.  Porter,  who  is  m.d.  as  well  as  d.d.,  had 
been  for  some  years  on  the  field,  but  being  the  only  man  of  medi- 
cal training  had  been  called  a  great  deal  from  station  to  station  to 
attend  cases  of  illness  among  the  missionaries,  and  had  never  been 
able  to  establish  regular  hospital  work.  For  the  sake  of  absolute 
accuracy  I  will  note  the  fact  that  Dr.  Treat,  son  of  Secretary 
Treat,  had  been  for  a  short  time  in  connection  with  the  mission, 
but  had  returned  to  America  before  I  came  out,  and  I  understand 
had  never  settled  down  anywhere.  So  that  I  may  fairly  say  that  I 
was  the  first  unordained  medical  missionary  to  establish  regular 
hospital  work  in  connection  with  the  North  China  Mission  ;  and 
from  the  fact  that  since  then  such  a  department  has  been  eagerly 
sought  for  every  station  of  our  mission  except  Tientsin,  where  it 
is  not  wise  to  add  another  to  the  many  hospitals  already  existing,  I 
read  in  this  development  a  practical  acknowledgment  of  the  great 
usefulness  of  this  department  of  missionary  effort. 

"  It  may  not  be  uninteresting  to  note  that  since  I  came  out  seven 
unordained  medical  missionaries,  of  whom  two  were  ladies,  have 
joined  this  mission  ;  while  in  addition  since  the  opening  of  the 
station  of  Pang-chuang  Dr.  Porter  has  carried  on  regular  medical 
work  until  my  transfer  in  1884  enabled  him  to  devote  himself 
mainly  to  the  (to  him  more  congenial)  evangelistic  work.  And 
we  should  also  give  full  credit  to  the  large  and  valuable  medical 
work  done  by  Rev.  I.  J.  Atwood,  m.d.,  now  of  Shansi,  who  was 
for  a  time  in  this  field  ;  also  to  Rev.  H.  P.  Perkins  and  Mrs.  Per- 
kins, who  are  now  in  America  but  soon  to  return. 

"  Thus  from  small  beginnings  the  medical  work  has  grown  to  the 
proportions  indicated,  absorbing  the  time  of  a  number  of  mission- 
aries and  making  a  large  item  in  the  yearly  appropriations  required 
for  carrying  on  the  work  of  this  mission.  The  fact  of  the  growth 
is  the  evidence  pointed  to  in  proof  of  the  value  set  on  it  by  this 
mission.     And  I  may  refrain  from  quoting  from  my  clerical  col- 


43 

leagues  any  formal  expressions  of  opinion  as  to  the  helpfulness  of 
the  medical  work.     Proceeding  to  a  consideration  of 

WHAT    DOES    IT    DO  : 

"  First,  It  blesses  physically  thousands  of  otherwise  helpless 
ones.  In  our  own  land  only  the  poverty-stricken  need  such  humane 
provision.  Those  who  have  money  can  procure  the  best  help  that 
science  can  give  them.  Here  there  is  absolutely  no  other  provi- 
sion for  the  thousands  who  throng  us.  I  have  often  felt  grieved 
that  this  philanthropic  aspect  of  our  work  did  not  appeal  more 
strongly  to  the  supporters  of  missions  at  home.  Blessed  sympathy 
there  so  often  expends  its  glad  munificence  in  the  form  of  build- 
ing and  endowing  hospitals  both  by  public  and  private  charity 
that  it  would  seem  in  the  light  of  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord  this 
might  be  considered  for  its  own  sweet  sake  a  legitimate  part  of 
Christian  missions  —  for  His  sake  and  in  His  name  ;  and  all  the 
more  heartily,  since  — 

"  Second,  It  does  this  work  at  far  less  cost  than  such  charitable 
enterprises  can  be  provided  for  at  home.  The  entire  cost  of  a 
hospital  like  Williams  Hospital,  capable  of  accommodating  loo 
patients  besides  taking  care  of  the  very  large  dispensary  clinics, 
is  less  than  is  usually  paid  to  endow  a  single  bed  in  one  of  our 
great  hospitals  at  home.  We  do  not  have  in  our  operating 
rooms  the  finest  appliances  for  modern  antiseptic  surgery,  nor  has 
the  attending  staff  the  time  and  strength  in  the  great  press  of 
work  to  meet  the  exacting  demands  of  it  in  its  late  wonderful 
development. 

"  We  furnish  neither  food,  fuel,  bedding,  nor  nursing  to  our 
patients,  all  of  which  must  go  into  the  expense  of  a  free  hospital 
at  home.  In  the  matter  of  drugs,  too,  it  is  my  habit  to  use  the 
cruder  forms,  so  that  many  of  my  patients  are  taking  the  same 
sort  of  unpleasant  decoctions  that  our  respected  grandparents 
used  to  swallow,  rather  than  the  elegant  but  more  expensive  prod- 
ucts of  modern  pharmaceutical  chemistry. 

"Third,  The  presence  of  a  medical  missionary  gives  the  mem- 
bers of  the  missionary  force  at  each  station  constant  and  compe- 
tent advice  ;  this  is  not  a  light  matter  either  as  regards  the  health 
and  comfort  of  the  missionaries  or  the  occasional  avoiding  of 
expense  to  the  Board.  I  think  that  during  the  past  winter  two  of 
the  members  of  one  station  would  have  died  had  it  not  been  for 
very  assiduous  care  given  through  a  long  and  dangerous  illness. 


44 


"  Fourth,  The  medical  work  brings  to  our  doors  thousands  of 
people  every  year  who  would  not  otherwise  come  near  us.  These 
are  not  all  sick  people  ;  those  who  cannot  serve  themselves  must 
bring  some  one  of  their  family  to  wait  on  them.  In  one  instance 
this  last  winter  five  came  to  wait  on  an  old  lady  from  whom  I 
removed  a  cancer.  So  that  the  number  of  patients  reported  in 
hospital  does  not  represent  by  a  considerable  fraction  those  who 
are  reached  by  the  presentation  of  gospel  truth. 

"  Fifth,  They  are  kept  during  the  period  of  their  stay  under  far 
more  favorable  influences  than  if  reached  in  any  other  way.  With 
abundant  leisure,  with  friends  at  hand  ministering  both  to  bodily 
and  spiritual  necessities,  their  home  affairs  and  the  cares  of  daily 
life  removed  from  their  consideration  for  a  time,  the  reception 
and  growth  of  new  ideas  is  greatly  facilitated ;  while  a  sort  of 
gratitude  for  benefits  conferred  often  makes  them  anxious  to  please 
us  by  paying  some  attention  to  the  instruction  given,  when  other- 
wise they  would  be  indifferent  to  it. 

"  Sixth,  The  above  remarks  are  more  pertinent  to  those  who 
remain  as  in-patients  for  a  time  in  the  hospital  than  to  those  who 
only  come  to  the  daily  clinics.  Preaching  to  these  transient 
comers  in  the  waiting-room  is  more  like  preaching  to  the  crowds 
at  the  fairs  ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  remark  in  this  connection  that  more 
Christian  books  are  sold  in  the  waiting-room  of  the  hospital  here 
than  are  sold  by  the  force  of  native  evangelists  in  their  continu- 
ous trips  to  the  fairs,  large  and  small,  for  the  express  purpose  of 
preaching  and  bookselling. 

"  Seventh,  The  reputation  which  is  given  to  the  mission  station 
in  the  great  heathen  community  by  which  we  are  surrounded  is 
very  much  better  on  account  of  the  charitable  work  here  carried 
on.  Among  a  people  so  capable  of  appreciating  such  an  institu- 
tion as  the  Chinese,  it  carries  great  weight  and  tends  largely  to 
allay  the  feelings  of  suspicion  and  irritation  with  which  foreigners 
are  so  generally  regarded  in  China. 

"  Eighth,  The  medical  work  recommends  not  only  the  foreigner 
personally  but  the  religion  which  he  preaches.  A  curious  instance 
of  this  comes  to  my  mind  as  I  write.  A  young  man  turned  up 
not  many  weeks  ago  in  my  office,  having  walked  a  distance  of 
about  forty  miles ;  his  errand  seemed  to  be  to  inquire  about  our 
religion.  He  had  never  been  here  before,  and  to  my  question  as 
to  whether  he  had  heard  the  preaching  of  our  missionaries  or 
native    helpers   at    the    fairs    he  said    he  had  not.     He  was  not 


45 

acquainted  with  any  of  our  church  members  and  said  that  so  far 
as  he  knew  none  of  his  neighbors  or  acquaintances  had  ever 
been  here  for  medicine.  Upon  my  pressing  him  as  to  how  then 
he  knew  anything  about  us  and  our  rehgion,  he  said  he  got  it 
from  an  oil-pedler  who  stopped  in  his  rounds  at  his  gate.  As 
there  are  no  newspapers  here,  gossip  is  the  usual  means  of  carry- 
ing news  and  the  itinerant  venders  of  all  sorts,  as  used  to  be  the 
case  with  us,  are  important  disseminators  of  intelligence.  In  the 
course  then  of  this  accidental  conversation  the  young  man  learned 
enough  about  us  here  to  pique  his  curiosity  and  impel  him  to 
take  the  tramp  and  spend  the  money  required  to  come  here. 
He  dared  not  tell  at  home  where  he  was  going,  and  so  had  to 
come  away  without  any  bedding,  since  to  take  it  would  have 
attracted  attention.  But  stealing  away  he  stopped  at  a  temple 
where  an  uncle  is  the  priest,  told  him  where  he  was  going  and  got 
him  to  send  back  word  to  the  family  not  to  be  alarmed  at  his 
absence.  Being  curious  to  know  all  the  hnks  of  the  chain  I 
queried  further  as  to  the  oil-pedler.  Did  we  know  him?  No, 
he  had  never  been  here.  Well,  then  the  natural  question  was  how 
did  he  know  about  us?  The  young  man  said  that  the  pedler 
learned  what  he  knew  from  an  innkeeper  at  a  place  about  thirty 
miles  east  of  us  where  he  was  in  the  habit  of  putting  up  on  his 
rounds.  Yes,  but  who  is  the  innkeeper?  Do  we  know  him? 
Oh,  no,  was  the  reply ;  the  innkeeper  had  never  been  over  here. 
Well,  then,  pursued  the  relentless  examiner,  what  did  the  inn- 
keeper know  about  us?  The  innkeeper  said  he  had  a  friend 
who  had  been  troubled  for  a  long  time  with  a  fistula,  which  the 
innkeeper,  being  something  of  a  doctor,  had  tried  in  vain  to  cure. 
Finally  the  friend  came  to  our  hospital,  stayed  a  few  days,  was 
cured,  and  returning  carried  not  only  the  story  of  the  marvelous 
cures  performed  here,  but  also  something  of  the  doctrine  he  had 
heard.  At  the  risk  of  wearisome  prolixity  I  have  traced  the 
windings  of  this  little  incident  as  they  unfolded  themselves  to  me. 
What  the  outcome  may  be  we  cannot  tell,  but  you  will  doubtless 
agree  with  me  that  it  casts  an  interesting  sidelight  on  the  social 
conditions  among  this  curious  people  and  that  it  is  much  better 
for  us  to  be  talked  about  in  this  way  than  in  the  style  of  the  old 
stories  of  digging  out  hearts  and  eyes  and  like  cheerful  rumors 
which  circulate  in  all  parts  of  the  empire  and  have  provoked 
many  riots. 

"  Ninth,  I  hope  that  in  reckoning  the  value    of   our  medical 


46 

work  no  one  would  wish  to  estimate  it  by  calculating  the  number 
of  conversions  among  our  patients.  The  problem  is  by  no  means 
so  simple.  It  is  a  time  of  patient  seed-sowing  (so  to  speak), 
x^nd  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  there  are  very  many  of  our  Christians 
who  were  first  brought  to  us  through  the  hospital.  I  remember, 
many  years  ago,  when  I  was  stationed  at  Pao-ting-fu,  a  little  old  man 
who  came  to  have  a  large  tumor  removed  from  his  neck.  He 
had  never  seen  a  foreigner  until  he  came  into  our  courts,  and  had 
only  heard  of  us  through  the  reports  carried  away  by  patients. 
Yet  before  coming  he  sold  all  his  httle  property  to  get  the  means 
to  come  with.  To  the  remonstrance  of  friends  and  neighbors  he 
only  replied  that  the  tumor  made  his  life  a  burden,  and  that  he 
was  going  to  try  this  foreign  doctor  anyway ;  saying  in  the 
expressive  idiom  of  his  vernacular,  'If  he  was  cured  well,  he 
could  earn  some  more  money;  and  if  he  was  cured  dead,  he 
would  not  need  it.'  His  simple  faith  would  not  take  account  of 
the  dangers  of  the  operation,  which  I  rather  shrank  from  myself, 
so  I  yielded  to  his  insistence  and  was  gratified  that  he  did  not  die 
on  the  operating-table.  After  a  prolonged  convalescence  and 
when  he  had  eaten  up  the  supplies  he  brought  with  him,  he  left 
the  hospital  suddenly  at  daylight  one  morning  while  he  was  still 
in  a  dangerous  condition  from  an  intercurrent  attack  of  erysipelas, 
only  saying  to  the  gatekeeper  that  he  could  not  think  of  accept- 
ing my  offer  of  food  until  he  should  be  better,  as  he  was  already 
under  great  obligations  to  us  for  what  we  had  done,  and  he  did 
not  like  to  be  a  further  burden  on  our  charity.  We  had  no 
acquaintance  in  the  region  he  came  from  and  so  I  sent  a  bottle 
of  medicine  by  some  one  going  in  that  general  direction,  hoping 
that  it  might,  after  being  passed  from  one  to  another,  finally 
reach  him.  We  heard  nothing  from  him,  and  I  concluded  that 
he  had  probably  died.  Months  afterward,  however,  one  of  our 
colporters  found  him,  as  he  said,  'very  much  alive'  at  a  fair;  he 
had  not  only  entirely  recovered  but  was  preaching  the  gospel ; 
this  was  the  more  surprising  as  while  in  the  hospital  he  seemed  to 
be  even  stupider  than  the  average ;  but  after  all  he  had  really 
taken  in  a  little  of  the  doctrine  he  heard,  and  moreover  had 
bought  a  little  book  called  the  '  Trimetrical  Classic,'  a  most  elemen- 
tary statement  of  the  outlines  of  Christianity  in  a  jingle  of  three 
characters  to  a  line.  He  had  paid  for  it  and  he  had  learned  to  read 
it,  and  he  rolled  it  up  in  his  bedding  and  carried  it  off  with  him. 
When  he  got  well  he  began  going  again  to  the  little  local  fairs,  as 


47 

all  well-regulated  Chinamen  do  in  the  country  districts,  for  there 
all  the  business  is  transacted  and  all  that  is  going  on  in  their  little 
world  is  to  be  seen  and  heard.  He  had  been  well  known  for 
years  as  '  the  man  with  the  big  tumor,'  and  when  he  came 
around  without  it  he  was  a  great  curiosity.  But  they  said  he 
used  to  keep  a  big  handkerchief  tied  about  his  neck  and  when  a 
little  crowd  of  people  would  want  to  know  all  about  it  he  would 
say  :  '  Yes,  I  got  cured  up  there,  but  they  had  a  doctrine  up  there 
too  that  is  better  than  the  medicine  ;  and  I  've  got  a  little  book 
here  that  tells  about  it ;  so  if  you  will  sit  down  here  and  let  me 
tell  you  about  the  doctrine,  then  I  '11  show  you  my  neck  !  '  So 
his  excited  audience  must  needs  put  their  curiosity  in  their 
sleeves  while  he  pulled  out  from  his  his  little  book  and  told  the 
'  Old,  old  story  of  Jesus  and  his  love.'  I  am  glad  to  be  able 
to  add  that  he  was  afterward  invited  to  a  winter  class  at  Pao-ting-fu, 
learned  more  of  the  truth,  joined  the  church,  and  has  ever  since 
been  a  zealous,  warm-hearted  Christian ;  while  his  district,  Po  Yi, 
you  will  find  now  reported  in  the  station  reports  of  Pao-ting-fu  as 
having  a  little  church  and  being  one  of  the  hopeful  out-stations  in 
this  developing  work. 

"Tenth,  The  great  numbers  attending  our  dispensaries  and 
hospitals  are  far  beyond  the  ability  of  one  man  to  handle,  and 
this  implies  the  training  of  young  assistants.  They  are  taught 
from  medical  works  that  have  been  translated  into  Chinese  and 
this,  with  the  immense  clinical  experience  they  get,  rapidly  gives 
them  a  considerable  degree  of  skill  in  the  treatment  of  the 
more  ordinary  ailments.  And  they  are  able  not  only  thus  to  aid 
the  missionary  but  make  useful  companions  for  the  preaching 
evangelists  in  tours  through  the  country. 

"  Some  of  the  young  men  whom  we  have  had  in  training  have 
not  proved  as  competent  or  as  worthy  as  we  wished  and  they 
have  been  dismissed.  We  demand  a  high  degree  of  Christian 
growth  and  culture  as  well  as  zeal  and  ability.  Much  to  our 
regret  several  have  failed  to  come  up  to  the  standard  and  have 
been  dismissed  ;  so  that  these  losses,  with  one  or  two  deaths,  have 
kept  our  force  only  equal  to  the  expanding  work.  In  my  judg- 
ment the  time  has  come  for  the  consideration  of  the  question 
as  to  whether  a  medical  education  should  not  be  provided  for 
larger  numbers ;  and  young  men  of  ability  who  have  had  some 
Hterary  training  in  our  Tung-cho  school  may  be  selected  for  this 
department. 


48 

"  If  the  Christian  physician  is  felt  to  be  a  power  in  a  community 
at  home,  how  much  more  would  he  be  here  !  I  came  to  China 
with  high  hopes  that  the  native  practitioners  of  medicine  might 
be  induced  to  attend  our  clinics,  and  seeing  the  advantage  of 
foreign  medicines  be  glad  to  get  at  least  a  little  superficial  knowl- 
edge of  it,  and  so  prepare  the  way  in  this^  generation  for  a  more 
thorough  education  for  the  next.  This  has  been  the  case  in 
Japan,  but  Chinese  conservatism  is  as  yet  too  much  for  this  inno- 
vation and  my  hopes  in  that  direction  have  been  blasted. 

"It  now  remains  to  be  seen  what  with  wise  prescience  we  can 
do  for  future  generations,  beginning  with  those  who  are  children 
to-day.  A  thorough  scientific  education  as  we  understand  it  is 
perhaps  neither  necessary  nor  desirable  for  this  first  generation 
of  such  practitioners,  but  a  plain,  practical,  somewhat  empirical 
knowledge  of  modern  medicine  is  enough  where  the  popular 
ignorance  is  as  yet  dense.  The  profession  will  always  keep  in 
advance  of  the  general  intelligence." 


These  fourteen  testimonials  from  the  missionary  field  speak 
for  themselves.  They  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  medical 
arm  of  the  missionary  service  and  make  the  call  for  enlarged 
plans  and  for  enlarged  contributions  for  this  department  impera- 
tive. The  apostolic  motto  for  this  paper  may  appropriately  be  : 
"  Luke  the  beloved  physician  saluteth  you." 


■l^pl^L'3  Bros. 
!^     "Makers 
1   Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
PAT,  M.  21.  1908 


